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Drawing is a form of visual art in which a person uses various drawing instruments to mark paper or another two-dimensional medium. Instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, various kinds of erasers, markers, styluses, various metals (such as silverpoint) and electronic drawing.

 

A drawing instrument releases small amount of material onto a surface, leaving a visible mark. The most common support for drawing is paper, although other materials, such as cardboard, plastic, leather, canvas, and board, may be used. Temporary drawings may be made on a blackboard or whiteboard or indeed almost anything. The medium has been a popular and fundamental means of public expression throughout human history. It is one of the simplest and most efficient means of communicating visual ideas.[1] The wide availability of drawing instruments makes drawing one of the most common artistic activities.

In addition to its more artistic forms, drawing is frequently used in commercial illustration, animation, architecture, engineering and technical drawing. A quick, freehand drawing, usually not intended as a finished work, is sometimes called a sketch. An artist who practices or works in technical drawing may be called a drafter, draftsman or a draughtsman.[2]

Drawing is one of the major forms of expression within the visual arts. It is generally concerned with the marking of lines and areas of tone onto paper/other material, where the accurate representation of the visual world is expressed upon a plane surface.[3] Traditional drawings were monochrome, or at least had little colour,[4] while modern colored-pencil drawings may approach or cross a boundary between drawing and painting. In Western terminology, drawing is distinct from painting, even though similar media often are employed in both tasks. Dry media, normally associated with drawing, such as chalk, may be used in pastel paintings. Drawing may be done with a liquid medium, applied with brushes or pens. Similar supports likewise can serve both: painting generally involves the application of liquid paint onto prepared canvas or panels, but sometimes an underdrawing is drawn first on that same support.

  

Madame Palmyre with Her Dog, 1897. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

 

Galileo Galilei. Phases of the Moon. 1616.

Drawing is often exploratory, with considerable emphasis on observation, problem-solving and composition. Drawing is also regularly used in preparation for a painting, further obfuscating their distinction. Drawings created for these purposes are called studies.

 

There are several categories of drawing, including figure drawing, cartooning, doodling, free hand and shading. There are also many drawing methods, such as line drawing, stippling, shading, the surrealist method of entopic graphomania (in which dots are made at the sites of impurities in a blank sheet of paper, and lines are then made between the dots), and tracing (drawing on a translucent paper, such as tracing paper, around the outline of preexisting shapes that show through the paper).

 

A quick, unrefined drawing may be called a sketch.

 

In fields outside art, technical drawings or plans of buildings, machinery, circuitry and other things are often called "drawings" even when they have been transferred to another medium by printing.

 

History[edit]

Drawing as a Form of Communication Drawing is one of the oldest forms of human expression, with evidence for its existence preceding that of written communication.[5] It is believed that drawing was used as a specialised form of communication before the invent of the written language,[5][6] demonstrated by the production of cave and rock paintings created by Homo sapiens sapiens around 30,000 years ago.[7] These drawings, known as pictograms, depicted objects and abstract concepts.[8] The sketches and paintings produced in prehistoric times were eventually stylised and simplified, leading to the development of the written language as we know it today.

 

Drawing in the Arts Drawing is used to express one's creativity, and therefore has been prominent in the world of art. Throughout much of history, drawing was regarded as the foundation for artistic practise.[9] Initially, artists used and reused wooden tablets for the production of their drawings.[10] Following the widespread availability of paper in the 14th century, the use of drawing in the arts increased. At this point, drawing was commonly used as a tool for thought and investigation, acting as a study medium whilst artists were preparing for their final pieces of work.[11][12] In a period of artistic flourish, the Renaissance brought about drawings exhibiting realistic representational qualities,[13] where there was a lot of influence from geometry and philosophy.[14]

 

The invention of the first widely available form of photography led to a shift in the use of drawing in the arts.[15] Photography took over from drawing as a more superior method for accurately representing visual phenomena, and artists began to abandon traditional drawing practises.[16] Modernism in the arts encouraged "imaginative originality"[17] and artists' approach to drawing became more abstract.

 

Drawing Outside the Arts Although the use of drawing is extensive in the arts, its practice is not confined purely to this field. Before the widespread availability of paper, 12th century monks in European monasteries used intricate drawings to prepare illustrated, illuminated manuscripts on vellum and parchment. Drawing has also been used extensively in the field of science, as a method of discovery, understanding and explanation. In 1616, astronomer Galileo Galilei explained the changing phases of the moon through his observational telescopic drawings.[16] Additionally, in 1924, geophysicist Alfred Wegener used illustrations to visually demonstrate the origin of the continents.The medium is the means by which ink, pigment or color are delivered onto the drawing surface. Most drawing media are either dry (e.g. graphite, charcoal, pastels, Conté, silverpoint), or use a fluid solvent or carrier (marker, pen and ink). Watercolor pencils can be used dry like ordinary pencils, then moistened with a wet brush to get various painterly effects. Very rarely, artists have drawn with (usually decoded) invisible ink. Metalpoint drawing usually employs either of two metals: silver or lead.[20] More rarely used are gold, platinum, copper, brass, bronze, and tinpoint.

 

Paper comes in a variety of different sizes and qualities, ranging from newspaper grade up to high quality and relatively expensive paper sold as individual sheets.[21] Papers can vary in texture, hue, acidity, and strength when wet. Smooth paper is good for rendering fine detail, but a more "toothy" paper holds the drawing material better. Thus a coarser material is useful for producing deeper contrast.

 

Newsprint and typing paper may be useful for practice and rough sketches. Tracing paper is used to experiment over a half-finished drawing, and to transfer a design from one sheet to another. Cartridge paper is the basic type of drawing paper sold in pads. Bristol board and even heavier acid-free boards, frequently with smooth finishes, are used for drawing fine detail and do not distort when wet media (ink, washes) are applied. Vellum is extremely smooth and suitable for very fine detail. Coldpressed watercolor paper may be favored for ink drawing due to its texture.

 

Acid-free, archival quality paper keeps its color and texture far longer than wood pulp based paper such as newsprint, which turns yellow and become brittle much sooner.

 

The basic tools are a drawing board or table, pencil sharpener and eraser, and for ink drawing, blotting paper. Other tools used are circle compass, ruler, and set square. Fixative is used to prevent pencil and crayon marks from smudging. Drafting tape is used to secure paper to drawing surface, and also to mask an area to keep it free of accidental marks sprayed or spattered materials and washes. An easel or slanted table is used to keep the drawing surface in a suitable position, which is generally more horizontal than the position used in painting.

 

Technique[edit]

 

Raphael, study for what became the Alba Madonna, with other sketches

Almost all draftsmen use their hands and fingers to apply the media, with the exception of some handicapped individuals who draw with their mouth or feet.[22]

 

Prior to working on an image, the artist typically explores how various media work. They may try different drawing implements on practice sheets to determine value and texture, and how to apply the implement to produce various effects.

 

The artist's choice of drawing strokes affects the appearance of the image. Pen and ink drawings often use hatching—groups of parallel lines.[23] Cross-hatching uses hatching in two or more different directions to create a darker tone. Broken hatching, or lines with intermittent breaks, form lighter tones—and controlling the density of the breaks achieves a gradation of tone. Stippling, uses dots to produce tone, texture or shade. Different textures can be achieved depending on the method used to build tone.[24]

 

Drawings in dry media often use similar techniques, though pencils and drawing sticks can achieve continuous variations in tone. Typically a drawing is filled in based on which hand the artist favors. A right-handed artist draws from left to right to avoid smearing the image. Erasers can remove unwanted lines, lighten tones, and clean up stray marks. In a sketch or outline drawing, lines drawn often follow the contour of the subject, creating depth by looking like shadows cast from a light in the artist's position.

 

Sometimes the artist leaves a section of the image untouched while filling in the remainder. The shape of the area to preserve can be painted with masking fluid or cut out of a frisket and applied to the drawing surface, protecting the surface from stray marks until the mask is removed.

 

Another method to preserve a section of the image is to apply a spray-on fixative to the surface. This holds loose material more firmly to the sheet and prevents it from smearing. However the fixative spray typically uses chemicals that can harm the respiratory system, so it should be employed in a well-ventilated area such as outdoors.

 

Another technique is subtractive drawing in which the drawing surface is covered with graphite or charcoal and then erased to make the image.[25]

 

Tone[edit]

 

Line drawing in sanguine by Leonardo da Vinci

Shading is the technique of varying the tonal values on the paper to represent the shade of the material as well as the placement of the shadows. Careful attention to reflected light, shadows and highlights can result in a very realistic rendition of the image.

 

Blending uses an implement to soften or spread the original drawing strokes. Blending is most easily done with a medium that does not immediately fix itself, such as graphite, chalk, or charcoal, although freshly applied ink can be smudged, wet or dry, for some effects. For shading and blending, the artist can use a blending stump, tissue, a kneaded eraser, a fingertip, or any combination of them. A piece of chamois is useful for creating smooth textures, and for removing material to lighten the tone. Continuous tone can be achieved with graphite on a smooth surface without blending, but the technique is laborious, involving small circular or oval strokes with a somewhat blunt point.

 

Shading techniques that also introduce texture to the drawing include hatching and stippling. A number of other methods produce texture. In addition to the choice of paper, drawing material and technique affect texture. Texture can be made to appear more realistic when it is drawn next to a contrasting texture; a coarse texture is more obvious when placed next to a smoothly blended area. A similar effect can be achieved by drawing different tones close together. A light edge next to a dark background stands out to the eye, and almost appears to float above the surface.

 

Form and proportion[edit]

 

Pencil portrait by Ingres

Measuring the dimensions of a subject while blocking in the drawing is an important step in producing a realistic rendition of the subject. Tools such as a compass can be used to measure the angles of different sides. These angles can be reproduced on the drawing surface and then rechecked to make sure they are accurate. Another form of measurement is to compare the relative sizes of different parts of the subject with each other. A finger placed at a point along the drawing implement can be used to compare that dimension with other parts of the image. A ruler can be used both as a straightedge and a device to compute proportions.

 

When attempting to draw a complicated shape such as a human figure, it is helpful at first to represent the form with a set of primitive volumes. Almost any form can be represented by some combination of the cube, sphere, cylinder, and cone. Once these basic volumes have been assembled into a likeness, then the drawing can be refined into a more accurate and polished form. The lines of the primitive volumes are removed and replaced by the final likeness. Drawing the underlying construction is a fundamental skill for representational art, and is taught in many books and schools. Its correct application resolves most uncertainties about smaller details, and makes the final image look consistent.[26]

 

A more refined art of figure drawing relies upon the artist possessing a deep understanding of anatomy and the human proportions. A trained artist is familiar with the skeleton structure, joint location, muscle placement, tendon movement, and how the different parts work together during movement. This allows the artist to render more natural poses that do not appear artificially stiff. The artist is also familiar with how the proportions vary depending on the age of the subject, particularly when drawing a portrait.

 

Perspective[edit]

Linear perspective is a method of portraying objects on a flat surface so that the dimensions shrink with distance. Each set of parallel, straight edges of any object, whether a building or a table, follows lines that eventually converge at a vanishing point. Typically this convergence point is somewhere along the horizon, as buildings are built level with the flat surface. When multiple structures are aligned with each other, such as buildings along a street, the horizontal tops and bottoms of the structures typically converge at a vanishing point.

  

Two-point perspective drawing

When both the fronts and sides of a building are drawn, then the parallel lines forming a side converge at a second point along the horizon (which may be off the drawing paper.) This is a two-point perspective.[27] Converging the vertical lines to a third point above or below the horizon then produces a three-point perspective.

 

Depth can also be portrayed by several techniques in addition to the perspective approach above. Objects of similar size should appear ever smaller the further they are from the viewer. Thus the back wheel of a cart appears slightly smaller than the front wheel. Depth can be portrayed through the use of texture. As the texture of an object gets further away it becomes more compressed and busy, taking on an entirely different character than if it was close. Depth can also be portrayed by reducing the contrast in more distant objects, and by making their colors less saturated. This reproduces the effect of atmospheric haze, and cause the eye to focus primarily on objects drawn in the foreground.

 

Artistry[edit]

 

Chiaroscuro study drawing by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

The composition of the image is an important element in producing an interesting work of artistic merit. The artist plans element placement in the art to communicate ideas and feelings with the viewer. The composition can determine the focus of the art, and result in a harmonious whole that is aesthetically appealing and stimulating.

 

The illumination of the subject is also a key element in creating an artistic piece, and the interplay of light and shadow is a valuable method in the artist's toolbox. The placement of the light sources can make a considerable difference in the type of message that is being presented. Multiple light sources can wash out any wrinkles in a person's face, for instance, and give a more youthful appearance. In contrast, a single light source, such as harsh daylight, can serve to highlight any texture or interesting features.

 

When drawing an object or figure, the skilled artist pays attention to both the area within the silhouette and what lies outside. The exterior is termed the negative space, and can be as important in the representation as the figure. Objects placed in the background of the figure should appear properly placed wherever they can be viewed.

  

Drawing process in the Academic Study of a Male Torso by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1801, National Museum, Warsaw)

A study is a draft drawing that is made in preparation for a planned final image. Studies can be used to determine the appearances of specific parts of the completed image, or for experimenting with the best approach for accomplishing the end goal. However a well-crafted study can be a piece of art in its own right, and many hours of careful work can go into completing a study.

 

Process[edit]

Individuals display differences in their ability to produce visually accurate drawings.[28] A visually accurate drawing is described as being "recognized as a particular object at a particular time and in a particular space, rendered with little addition of visual detail that can not be seen in the object represented or with little deletion of visual detail”.[29]

 

Investigative studies have aimed to explain the reasons why some individuals draw better than others. One study posited four key abilities in the drawing process: perception of objects being drawn, ability to make good representational decisions, motor skills required for mark-making and the drawer's own perception of their drawing.[29] Following this hypothesis, several studies have sought to conclude which of these processes are most significant in affecting the accuracy of drawings.

 

Motor function Motor function is an important physical component in the 'Production Phase' of the drawing process.[30] It has been suggested that motor function plays a role in drawing ability, though its effects are not significant.[29]

 

Perception It has been suggested that an individual's ability to perceive an object they are drawing is the most important stage in the drawing process.[29] This suggestion is supported by the discovery of a robust relationship between perception and drawing ability.[31]

 

This evidence acted as the basis of Betty Edwards' how-to drawing book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.[32] Edwards aimed to teach her readers how to draw, based on the development of the reader's perceptual abilities.

 

Furthermore, the influential artist and art critic John Ruskin emphasised the importance of perception in the drawing process in his book The Elements of Drawing.[33] He stated that "For I am nearly convinced, that once we see keenly enough, there is very little difficult in drawing what we see".

 

Visual memory has also been shown to influence one's ability to create visually accurate drawings. Short-term memory plays an important part in drawing as one’s gaze shifts between the object they are drawing and the drawing itself.[34]

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Woden sculptures in Castle de Haar , Kasteel de Haar near the suburb of Vleuten that includes village of Haarzuilen rebuild by architect Pierre Cuyper Project was finished in around 1912 took 20 years to be finished , Martin’s photograph , Utrecht , the Netherlands , June 5. 2019

 

Wooden sculptures

Fireplace with beautiful screen and mantel

Beautiful formal gardens with piramide shaped trees

Beautiful staircase

Beautiful staircase in castle , Kasteel de Haar

Staircase

Formal gardens

Stairway critters sculptures in Castle

Stairway sculptures

Spiral stairway

Central Station in Amsterdam , build by architect Pierre Cuyper

de Rijks Museum in Amsterdam build by architect Pierre Cuyper

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Central Station in Amsterdam

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Lavet bad tub

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I include D. in this Berkeley/San Francisco set even though she was from Boston and I mostly knew her there. She came out to see me in SF, which should have been a delight (even though I was seeing somebody else at the time) because we shared an incredible rapport, especially about movies -- which I was seeing left, right, and sideways. We'd known each other for about five years by then and our relationship had largely evolved into the "good buddy" kind -- as was amply demonstrated when she disappeared just after arriving. She'd met some other guy.

Edwardian racers at the 74th Members' Meeting, Goodwood, 2016

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The garden of Al Montazah is 3000 meters wide contains a huge selection of trees and plants, some of them quite rare. Some of the tropical plants are still in good shape although they have been planted more than 75 years ago. The plant collection in Montazah includes Catania, huge boots, Zamia, Carlota, and special types of palms. This is beside the big size plants like Anthurium, Hokiry, Araliaceae, Victoria, and Ropilia..Taken @Alexandria, Egypt

Plenty of Beautiful Demoiselles at Woods Mill on Sunday,

Includes Teams from Wagner/Bon Homme, Britton-Hecla, Vermillion, Stanley County and West Central. Permission granted for journalism outlets and educational purposes. Not for commercial use. Must be credited. Photo courtesy of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

©2021 SDPB

 

includes projects for handpuppets, a hat, rattle, bags, shoes, cushions, accessories, and more cute things. 23 projects total.

 

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71 pages

ISBN 4-309-28073-0

Includes Teams from Wagner/BH, Vermillion, Britton-Hecla, Stanley County West Central. Permission granted for journalism outlets and educational purposes. Not for commercial use. Must be credited. Photo courtesy of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

©2021 SDPB

 

Includes the Orion Nebula (M42/3), the Running Man Nebula (NGC 1977), the Christmas Tree Nebula (NGC 2024) and of course the Horsehead Nebula.

Due to the frequent showers earlier in the evening I was reluctant to set up the telescope, so this was the first time I'd used a telephoto lens (135mm) with the Vixen Polarie star tracker.

12 x 1-min exposures, ISO 3200, f/3.5. Modified EOS 600D & Zeiss Jena 135mm, on a Vixen Polarie for tracking.

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The Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, is located on New Bridge Street West. The gallery was designed in the Baroque style with Art Nouveau elements by architects Cackett & Burns Dick and is now a Grade II listed building. It was opened in 1904 and is now managed by Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums and sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. In front of the gallery is the Blue Carpet. The building, which was financed by a gift from a local wine merchant, Alexander Laing, is Grade II listed.

 

The gallery collection contains paintings, watercolours and decorative historical objects, including Newcastle silver. In the early 1880s, Newcastle was a major glass producer in the world and enamelled glasses by William Beilby are on view along with ceramics (including Maling pottery), and diverse contemporary works by emerging UK artists. It has a programme of regularly rotating exhibitions and has free entry.

 

The gallery's collection of paintings includes John Martin's dramatic The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as works by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Edward Burne-Jones (Laus Veneris), Isabella and the Pot of Basil from 1868 by William Holman Hunt, and Ben Nicholson. Local paintings include pictures by Ralph Hedley. There is also a collection of 18th- and 19th-century watercolours and drawings, including work by J. M. W. Turner and John Sell Cotman.[

 

Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle is a cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is located on the River Tyne's northern bank, opposite Gateshead to the south. It is the most populous settlement in the Tyneside conurbation and North East England.

 

Newcastle developed around a Roman settlement called Pons Aelius, the settlement became known as Monkchester before taking on the name of a castle built in 1080 by William the Conqueror's eldest son, Robert Curthose. It was one of the world's largest ship building and repair centres during the industrial revolution. Newcastle was part of the county of Northumberland until 1400, when it separated and formed a county of itself. In 1974, Newcastle became part of Tyne and Wear. Since 2018, the city council has been part of the North of Tyne Combined Authority.

 

The history of Newcastle upon Tyne dates back almost 2,000 years, during which it has been controlled by the Romans, the Angles and the Norsemen amongst others. Newcastle upon Tyne was originally known by its Roman name Pons Aelius. The name "Newcastle" has been used since the Norman conquest of England. Due to its prime location on the River Tyne, the town developed greatly during the Middle Ages and it was to play a major role in the Industrial Revolution, being granted city status in 1882. Today, the city is a major retail, commercial and cultural centre.

 

Roman settlement

The history of Newcastle dates from AD 122, when the Romans built the first bridge to cross the River Tyne at that point. The bridge was called Pons Aelius or 'Bridge of Aelius', Aelius being the family name of Roman Emperor Hadrian, who was responsible for the Roman wall built across northern England along the Tyne–Solway gap. Hadrian's Wall ran through present-day Newcastle, with stretches of wall and turrets visible along the West Road, and at a temple in Benwell. Traces of a milecastle were found on Westgate Road, midway between Clayton Street and Grainger Street, and it is likely that the course of the wall corresponded to present-day Westgate Road. The course of the wall can be traced eastwards to the Segedunum Roman fort at Wallsend, with the fort of Arbeia down-river at the mouth of the Tyne, on the south bank in what is now South Shields. The Tyne was then a wider, shallower river at this point and it is thought that the bridge was probably about 700 feet (210 m) long, made of wood and supported on stone piers. It is probable that it was sited near the current Swing Bridge, due to the fact that Roman artefacts were found there during the building of the latter bridge. Hadrian himself probably visited the site in 122. A shrine was set up on the completed bridge in 123 by the 6th Legion, with two altars to Neptune and Oceanus respectively. The two altars were subsequently found in the river and are on display in the Great North Museum in Newcastle.

 

The Romans built a stone-walled fort in 150 to protect the river crossing which was at the foot of the Tyne Gorge, and this took the name of the bridge so that the whole settlement was known as Pons Aelius. The fort was situated on a rocky outcrop overlooking the new bridge, on the site of the present Castle Keep. Pons Aelius is last mentioned in 400, in a Roman document listing all of the Roman military outposts. It is likely that nestling in the shadow of the fort would have been a small vicus, or village. Unfortunately, no buildings have been detected; only a few pieces of flagging. It is clear that there was a Roman cemetery near Clavering Place, behind the Central station, as a number of Roman coffins and sarcophagi have been unearthed there.

 

Despite the presence of the bridge, the settlement of Pons Aelius was not particularly important among the northern Roman settlements. The most important stations were those on the highway of Dere Street running from Eboracum (York) through Corstopitum (Corbridge) and to the lands north of the Wall. Corstopitum, being a major arsenal and supply centre, was much larger and more populous than Pons Aelius.

 

Anglo-Saxon development

The Angles arrived in the North-East of England in about 500 and may have landed on the Tyne. There is no evidence of an Anglo-Saxon settlement on or near the site of Pons Aelius during the Anglo-Saxon age. The bridge probably survived and there may well have been a small village at the northern end, but no evidence survives. At that time the region was dominated by two kingdoms, Bernicia, north of the Tees and ruled from Bamburgh, and Deira, south of the Tees and ruled from York. Bernicia and Deira combined to form the kingdom of Northanhymbra (Northumbria) early in the 7th century. There were three local kings who held the title of Bretwalda – 'Lord of Britain', Edwin of Deira (627–632), Oswald of Bernicia (633–641) and Oswy of Northumbria (641–658). The 7th century became known as the 'Golden Age of Northumbria', when the area was a beacon of culture and learning in Europe. The greatness of this period was based on its generally Christian culture and resulted in the Lindisfarne Gospels amongst other treasures. The Tyne valley was dotted with monasteries, with those at Monkwearmouth, Hexham and Jarrow being the most famous. Bede, who was based at Jarrow, wrote of a royal estate, known as Ad Murum, 'at the Wall', 12 miles (19 km) from the sea. It is thought that this estate may have been in what is now Newcastle. At some unknown time, the site of Newcastle came to be known as Monkchester. The reason for this title is unknown, as we are unaware of any specific monasteries at the site, and Bede made no reference to it. In 875 Halfdan Ragnarsson, the Danish Viking conqueror of York, led an army that attacked and pillaged various monasteries in the area, and it is thought that Monkchester was also pillaged at this time. Little more was heard of it until the coming of the Normans.

 

Norman period

After the arrival of William the Conqueror in England in 1066, the whole of England was quickly subjected to Norman rule. However, in Northumbria there was great resistance to the Normans, and in 1069 the newly appointed Norman Earl of Northumbria, Robert de Comines and 700 of his men were killed by the local population at Durham. The Northumbrians then marched on York, but William was able to suppress the uprising. That same year, a second uprising occurred when a Danish fleet landed in the Humber. The Northumbrians again attacked York and destroyed the garrison there. William was again able to suppress the uprising, but this time he took revenge. He laid waste to the whole of the Midlands and the land from York to the Tees. In 1080, William Walcher, the Norman bishop of Durham and his followers were brutally murdered at Gateshead. This time Odo, bishop of Bayeux, William's half brother, devastated the land between the Tees and the Tweed. This was known as the 'Harrying of the North'. This devastation is reflected in the Domesday Book. The destruction had such an effect that the North remained poor and backward at least until Tudor times and perhaps until the Industrial Revolution. Newcastle suffered in this respect with the rest of the North.

 

In 1080 William sent his eldest son, Robert Curthose, north to defend the kingdom against the Scots. After his campaign, he moved to Monkchester and began the building of a 'New Castle'. This was of the "motte-and-bailey" type of construction, a wooden tower on top of an earthen mound (motte), surrounded by a moat and wooden stockade (bailey). It was this castle that gave Newcastle its name. In 1095 the Earl of Northumbria, Robert de Mowbray, rose up against the king, William Rufus, and Rufus sent an army north to recapture the castle. From then on the castle became crown property and was an important base from which the king could control the northern barons. The Northumbrian earldom was abolished and a Sheriff of Northumberland was appointed to administer the region. In 1091 the parish church of St Nicholas was consecrated on the site of the present Anglican cathedral, close by the bailey of the new castle. The church is believed to have been a wooden building on stone footings.

 

Not a trace of the tower or mound of the motte and bailey castle remains now. Henry II replaced it with a rectangular stone keep, which was built between 1172 and 1177 at a cost of £1,444. A stone bailey, in the form of a triangle, replaced the previous wooden one. The great outer gateway to the castle, called 'the Black Gate', was built later, between 1247 and 1250, in the reign of Henry III. There were at that time no town walls and when attacked by the Scots, the townspeople had to crowd into the bailey for safety. It is probable that the new castle acted as a magnet for local merchants because of the safety it provided. This in turn would help to expand trade in the town. At this time wool, skins and lead were being exported, whilst alum, pepper and ginger were being imported from France and Flanders.

 

Middle Ages

Throughout the Middle Ages, Newcastle was England's northern fortress, the centre for assembled armies. The Border war against Scotland lasted intermittently for several centuries – possibly the longest border war ever waged. During the civil war between Stephen and Matilda, David 1st of Scotland and his son were granted Cumbria and Northumberland respectively, so that for a period from 1139 to 1157, Newcastle was effectively in Scottish hands. It is believed that during this period, King David may have built the church of St Andrew and the Benedictine nunnery in Newcastle. However, King Stephen's successor, Henry II was strong enough to take back the Earldom of Northumbria from Malcolm IV.

 

The Scots king William the Lion was imprisoned in Newcastle, in 1174, after being captured at the Battle of Alnwick. Edward I brought the Stone of Scone and William Wallace south through the town and Newcastle was successfully defended against the Scots three times during the 14th century.

 

Around 1200, stone-faced, clay-filled jetties were starting to project into the river, an indication that trade was increasing in Newcastle. As the Roman roads continued to deteriorate, sea travel was gaining in importance. By 1275 Newcastle was the sixth largest wool exporting port in England. The principal exports at this time were wool, timber, coal, millstones, dairy produce, fish, salt and hides. Much of the developing trade was with the Baltic countries and Germany. Most of the Newcastle merchants were situated near the river, below the Castle. The earliest known charter was dated 1175 in the reign of Henry II, giving the townspeople some control over their town. In 1216 King John granted Newcastle a mayor[8] and also allowed the formation of guilds (known as Mysteries). These were cartels formed within different trades, which restricted trade to guild members. There were initially twelve guilds. Coal was being exported from Newcastle by 1250, and by 1350 the burgesses received a royal licence to export coal. This licence to export coal was jealously guarded by the Newcastle burgesses, and they tried to prevent any one else on the Tyne from exporting coal except through Newcastle. The burgesses similarly tried to prevent fish from being sold anywhere else on the Tyne except Newcastle. This led to conflicts with Gateshead and South Shields.

 

In 1265, the town was granted permission to impose a 'Wall Tax' or Murage, to pay for the construction of a fortified wall to enclose the town and protect it from Scottish invaders. The town walls were not completed until early in the 14th century. They were two miles (3 km) long, 9 feet (2.7 m) thick and 25 feet (7.6 m) high. They had six main gates, as well as some smaller gates, and had 17 towers. The land within the walls was divided almost equally by the Lort Burn, which flowed southwards and joined the Tyne to the east of the Castle. The town began to expand north of the Castle and west of the Lort Burn with various markets being set up within the walls.

 

In 1400 Henry IV granted a new charter, creating a County corporate which separated the town, but not the Castle, from the county of Northumberland and recognised it as a "county of itself" with a right to have a sheriff of its own. The burgesses were now allowed to choose six aldermen who, with the mayor would be justices of the peace. The mayor and sheriff were allowed to hold borough courts in the Guildhall.

 

Religious houses

During the Middle Ages a number of religious houses were established within the walls: the first of these was the Benedictine nunnery of St Bartholomew founded in 1086 near the present-day Nun Street. Both David I of Scotland and Henry I of England were benefactors of the religious house. Nothing of the nunnery remains now.

 

The friary of Blackfriars, Newcastle (Dominican) was established in 1239. These were also known as the Preaching Friars or Shod Friars, because they wore sandals, as opposed to other orders. The friary was situated in the present-day Friars Street. In 1280 the order was granted royal permission to make a postern in the town walls to communicate with their gardens outside the walls. On 19 June 1334, Edward Balliol, claimant to be King of Scotland, did homage to King Edward III, on behalf of the kingdom of Scotland, in the church of the friary. Much of the original buildings of the friary still exist, mainly because, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries the friary of Blackfriars was rented out by the corporation to nine of the local trade guilds.

 

The friary of Whitefriars (Carmelite) was established in 1262. The order was originally housed on the Wall Knoll in Pandon, but in 1307 it took over the buildings of another order, which went out of existence, the Friars of the Sac. The land, which had originally been given by Robert the Bruce, was situated in the present-day Hanover Square, behind the Central station. Nothing of the friary remains now.

 

The friary of Austinfriars (Augustinian) was established in 1290. The friary was on the site where the Holy Jesus Hospital was built in 1682. The friary was traditionally the lodging place of English kings whenever they visited or passed through Newcastle. In 1503 Princess Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII of England, stayed two days at the friary on her way to join her new husband James IV of Scotland.

 

The friary of Greyfriars (Franciscans) was established in 1274. The friary was in the present-day area between Pilgrim Street, Grey Street, Market Street and High Chare. Nothing of the original buildings remains.

 

The friary of the Order of the Holy Trinity, also known as the Trinitarians, was established in 1360. The order devoted a third of its income to buying back captives of the Saracens, during the Crusades. Their house was on the Wall Knoll, in Pandon, to the east of the city, but within the walls. Wall Knoll had previously been occupied by the White Friars until they moved to new premises in 1307.

 

All of the above religious houses were closed in about 1540, when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries.

 

An important street running through Newcastle at the time was Pilgrim Street, running northwards inside the walls and leading to the Pilgrim Gate on the north wall. The street still exists today as arguably Newcastle's main shopping street.

 

Tudor period

The Scottish border wars continued for much of the 16th century, so that during that time, Newcastle was often threatened with invasion by the Scots, but also remained important as a border stronghold against them.

 

During the Reformation begun by Henry VIII in 1536, the five Newcastle friaries and the single nunnery were dissolved and the land was sold to the Corporation and to rich merchants. At this time there were fewer than 60 inmates of the religious houses in Newcastle. The convent of Blackfriars was leased to nine craft guilds to be used as their headquarters. This probably explains why it is the only one of the religious houses whose building survives to the present day. The priories at Tynemouth and Durham were also dissolved, thus ending the long-running rivalry between Newcastle and the church for control of trade on the Tyne. A little later, the property of the nunnery of St Bartholomew and of Grey Friars were bought by Robert Anderson, who had the buildings demolished to build his grand Newe House (also known as Anderson Place).

 

With the gradual decline of the Scottish border wars the town walls were allowed to decline as well as the castle. By 1547, about 10,000 people were living in Newcastle. At the beginning of the 16th century exports of wool from Newcastle were more than twice the value of exports of coal, but during the century coal exports continued to increase.

 

Under Edward VI, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, sponsored an act allowing Newcastle to annexe Gateshead as its suburb. The main reason for this was to allow the Newcastle Hostmen, who controlled the export of Tyne coal, to get their hands on the Gateshead coal mines, previously controlled by the Bishop of Durham. However, when Mary I came to power, Dudley met his downfall and the decision was reversed. The Reformation allowed private access to coal mines previously owned by Tynemouth and Durham priories and as a result coal exports increase dramatically, from 15,000 tons in 1500 to 35,000 tons in 1565, and to 400,000 tons in 1625.

 

The plague visited Newcastle four times during the 16th century, in 1579 when 2,000 people died, in 1589 when 1700 died, in 1595 and finally in 1597.

 

In 1600 Elizabeth I granted Newcastle a charter for an exclusive body of electors, the right to elect the mayor and burgesses. The charter also gave the Hostmen exclusive rights to load coal at any point on the Tyne. The Hostmen developed as an exclusive group within the Merchant Adventurers who had been incorporated by a charter in 1547.

 

Stuart period

In 1636 there was a serious outbreak of bubonic plague in Newcastle. There had been several previous outbreaks of the disease over the years, but this was the most serious. It is thought to have arrived from the Netherlands via ships that were trading between the Tyne and that country. It first appeared in the lower part of the town near the docks but gradually spread to all parts of the town. As the disease gained hold the authorities took measures to control it by boarding up any properties that contained infected persons, meaning that whole families were locked up together with the infected family members. Other infected persons were put in huts outside the town walls and left to die. Plague pits were dug next to the town's four churches and outside the town walls to receive the bodies in mass burials. Over the course of the outbreak 5,631 deaths were recorded out of an estimated population of 12,000, a death rate of 47%.

 

In 1637 Charles I tried to raise money by doubling the 'voluntary' tax on coal in return for allowing the Newcastle Hostmen to regulate production and fix prices. This caused outrage amongst the London importers and the East Anglian shippers. Both groups decided to boycott Tyne coal and as a result forced Charles to reverse his decision in 1638.

 

In 1640 during the Second Bishops' War, the Scots successfully invaded Newcastle. The occupying army demanded £850 per day from the Corporation to billet the Scottish troops. Trade from the Tyne ground to a halt during the occupation. The Scots left in 1641 after receiving a Parliamentary pardon and a £4,000,000 loan from the town.

 

In 1642 the English Civil War began. King Charles realised the value of the Tyne coal trade and therefore garrisoned Newcastle. A Royalist was appointed as governor. At that time, Newcastle and King's Lynn were the only important seaports to support the crown. In 1644 Parliament blockaded the Tyne to prevent the king from receiving revenue from the Tyne coal trade. Coal exports fell from 450,000 to 3,000 tons and London suffered a hard winter without fuel. Parliament encouraged the coal trade from the Wear to try to replace that lost from Newcastle but that was not enough to make up for the lost Tyneside tonnage.

 

In 1644 the Scots crossed the border. Newcastle strengthened its defences in preparation. The Scottish army, with 40,000 troops, besieged Newcastle for three months until the garrison of 1,500 surrendered. During the siege, the Scots bombarded the walls with their artillery, situated in Gateshead and Castle Leazes. The Scottish commander threatened to destroy the steeple of St Nicholas's Church by gunfire if the mayor, Sir John Marley, did not surrender the town. The mayor responded by placing Scottish prisoners that they had captured in the steeple, so saving it from destruction. The town walls were finally breached by a combination of artillery and sapping. In gratitude for this defence, Charles gave Newcastle the motto 'Fortiter Defendit Triumphans' to be added to its coat of arms. The Scottish army occupied Northumberland and Durham for two years. The coal taxes had to pay for the Scottish occupation. In 1645 Charles surrendered to the Scots and was imprisoned in Newcastle for nine months. After the Civil War the coal trade on the Tyne soon picked up and exceeded its pre-war levels.

 

A new Guildhall was completed on the Sandhill next to the river in 1655, replacing an earlier facility damaged by fire in 1639, and became the meeting place of Newcastle Town Council. In 1681 the Hospital of the Holy Jesus was built partly on the site of the Austin Friars. The Guildhall and Holy Jesus Hospital still exist.

 

Charles II tried to impose a charter on Newcastle to give the king the right to appoint the mayor, sheriff, recorder and town clerk. Charles died before the charter came into effect. In 1685, James II tried to replace Corporation members with named Catholics. However, James' mandate was suspended in 1689 after the Glorious Revolution welcoming William of Orange. In 1689, after the fall of James II, the people of Newcastle tore down his bronze equestrian statue in Sandhill and tossed it into the Tyne. The bronze was later used to make bells for All Saints Church.

 

In 1689 the Lort Burn was covered over. At this time it was an open sewer. The channel followed by the Lort Burn became the present day Dean Street. At that time, the centre of Newcastle was still the Sandhill area, with many merchants living along the Close or on the Side. The path of the main road through Newcastle ran from the single Tyne bridge, through Sandhill to the Side, a narrow street which climbed steeply on the north-east side of the castle hill until it reached the higher ground alongside St Nicholas' Church. As Newcastle developed, the Side became lined with buildings with projecting upper stories, so that the main street through Newcastle was a narrow, congested, steep thoroughfare.

 

In 1701 the Keelmen's Hospital was built in the Sandgate area of the city, using funds provided by the keelmen. The building still stands today.

 

Eighteenth century

In the 18th century, Newcastle was the country's largest print centre after London, Oxford and Cambridge, and the Literary and Philosophical Society of 1793, with its erudite debates and large stock of books in several languages predated the London Library by half a century.

 

In 1715, during the Jacobite rising in favour of the Old Pretender, an army of Jacobite supporters marched on Newcastle. Many of the Northumbrian gentry joined the rebels. The citizens prepared for its arrival by arresting Jacobite supporters and accepting 700 extra recruits into the local militia. The gates of the city were closed against the rebels. This proved enough to delay an attack until reinforcements arrived forcing the rebel army to move across to the west coast. The rebels finally surrendered at Preston.

 

In 1745, during a second Jacobite rising in favour of the Young Pretender, a Scottish army crossed the border led by Bonnie Prince Charlie. Once again Newcastle prepared by arresting Jacobite supporters and inducting 800 volunteers into the local militia. The town walls were strengthened, most of the gates were blocked up and some 200 cannon were deployed. 20,000 regulars were billeted on the Town Moor. These preparations were enough to force the rebel army to travel south via the west coast. They were eventually defeated at Culloden in 1746.

 

Newcastle's actions during the 1715 rising in resisting the rebels and declaring for George I, in contrast to the rest of the region, is the most likely source of the nickname 'Geordie', applied to people from Tyneside, or more accurately Newcastle. Another theory, however, is that the name 'Geordie' came from the inventor of the Geordie lamp, George Stephenson. It was a type of safety lamp used in mining, but was not invented until 1815. Apparently the term 'German Geordie' was in common use during the 18th century.

 

The city's first hospital, Newcastle Infirmary opened in 1753; it was funded by public subscription. A lying-in hospital was established in Newcastle in 1760. The city's first public hospital for mentally ill patients, Wardens Close Lunatic Hospital was opened in October 1767.

 

In 1771 a flood swept away much of the bridge at Newcastle. The bridge had been built in 1250 and repaired after a flood in 1339. The bridge supported various houses and three towers and an old chapel. A blue stone was placed in the middle of the bridge to mark the boundary between Newcastle and the Palatinate of Durham. A temporary wooden bridge had to be built, and this remained in use until 1781, when a new stone bridge was completed. The new bridge consisted of nine arches. In 1801, because of the pressure of traffic, the bridge had to be widened.

 

A permanent military presence was established in the city with the completion of Fenham Barracks in 1806. The facilities at the Castle for holding assizes, which had been condemned for their inconvenience and unhealthiness, were replaced when the Moot Hall opened in August 1812.

 

Victorian period

Present-day Newcastle owes much of its architecture to the work of the builder Richard Grainger, aided by architects John Dobson, Thomas Oliver, John and Benjamin Green and others. In 1834 Grainger won a competition to produce a new plan for central Newcastle. He put this plan into effect using the above architects as well as architects employed in his own office. Grainger and Oliver had already built Leazes Terrace, Leazes Crescent and Leazes Place between 1829 and 1834. Grainger and Dobson had also built the Royal Arcade at the foot of Pilgrim Street between 1830 and 1832. The most ambitious project covered 12 acres 12 acres (49,000 m2) in central Newcastle, on the site of Newe House (also called Anderson Place). Grainger built three new thoroughfares, Grey Street, Grainger Street and Clayton Street with many connecting streets, as well as the Central Exchange and the Grainger Market. John Wardle and George Walker, working in Grainger's office, designed Clayton Street, Grainger Street and most of Grey Street. Dobson designed the Grainger Market and much of the east side of Grey Street. John and Benjamin Green designed the Theatre Royal at the top of Grey Street, where Grainger placed the column of Grey's Monument as a focus for the whole scheme. Grey Street is considered to be one of the finest streets in the country, with its elegant curve. Unfortunately most of old Eldon Square was demolished in the 1960s in the name of progress. The Royal Arcade met a similar fate.

 

In 1849 a new bridge was built across the river at Newcastle. This was the High Level Bridge, designed by Robert Stephenson, and slightly up river from the existing bridge. The bridge was designed to carry road and rail traffic across the Tyne Gorge on two decks with rail traffic on the upper deck and road traffic on the lower. The new bridge meant that traffic could pass through Newcastle without having to negotiate the steep, narrow Side, as had been necessary for centuries. The bridge was opened by Queen Victoria, who one year later opened the new Central Station, designed by John Dobson. Trains were now able to cross the river, directly into the centre of Newcastle and carry on up to Scotland. The Army Riding School was also completed in 1849.

 

In 1854 a large fire started on the Gateshead quayside and an explosion caused it to spread across the river to the Newcastle quayside. A huge conflagration amongst the narrow alleys, or 'chares', destroyed the homes of 800 families as well as many business premises. The narrow alleys that had been destroyed were replaced by streets containing blocks of modern offices.

 

In 1863 the Town Hall in St Nicholas Square replaced the Guildhall as the meeting place of Newcastle Town Council.

 

In 1876 the low level bridge was replaced by a new bridge known as the Swing Bridge, so called because the bridge was able to swing horizontally on a central axis and allow ships to pass on either side. This meant that for the first time sizeable ships could pass up-river beyond Newcastle. The bridge was built and paid for by William Armstrong, a local arms manufacturer, who needed to have warships access his Elswick arms factory to fit armaments to them. The Swing Bridge's rotating mechanism is adapted from the cannon mounts developed in Armstrong's arms works. In 1882 the Elswick works began to build ships as well as to arm them. The Barrack Road drill hall was completed in 1890.

 

Industrialisation

In the 19th century, shipbuilding and heavy engineering were central to the city's prosperity; and the city was a powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution. Newcastle's development as a major city owed most to its central role in the production and export of coal. The phrase "taking coals to Newcastle" was first recorded in 1538; it proverbially denotes bringing a particular commodity to a place that has more than enough of it already.

 

Innovation in Newcastle and surrounding areas included the following:

 

George Stephenson developed a miner's safety lamp at the same time that Humphry Davy developed a rival design. The lamp made possible the opening up of ever deeper mines to provide the coal that powered the industrial revolution.

George and his son Robert Stephenson were hugely influential figures in the development of the early railways. George developed Blücher, a locomotive working at Killingworth colliery in 1814, whilst Robert was instrumental in the design of Rocket, a revolutionary design that was the forerunner of modern locomotives. Both men were involved in planning and building railway lines, all over this country and abroad.

 

Joseph Swan demonstrated a working electric light bulb about a year before Thomas Edison did the same in the USA. This led to a dispute as to who had actually invented the light bulb. Eventually the two rivals agreed to form a mutual company between them, the Edison and Swan Electric Light Company, known as Ediswan.

 

Charles Algernon Parsons invented the steam turbine, for marine use and for power generation. He used Turbinia, a small, turbine-powered ship, to demonstrate the speed that a steam turbine could generate. Turbinia literally ran rings around the British Fleet at a review at Spithead in 1897.

 

William Armstrong invented a hydraulic crane that was installed in dockyards up and down the country. He then began to design light, accurate field guns for the British army. These were a vast improvement on the existing guns that were then in use.

 

The following major industries developed in Newcastle or its surrounding area:

 

Glassmaking

A small glass industry existed in Newcastle from the mid-15th century. In 1615 restrictions were put on the use of wood for manufacturing glass. It was found that glass could be manufactured using the local coal, and so a glassmaking industry grew up on Tyneside. Huguenot glassmakers came over from France as refugees from persecution and set up glasshouses in the Skinnerburn area of Newcastle. Eventually, glass production moved to the Ouseburn area of Newcastle. In 1684 the Dagnia family, Sephardic Jewish emigrants from Altare, arrived in Newcastle from Stourbridge and established glasshouses along the Close, to manufacture high quality flint glass. The glass manufacturers used sand ballast from the boats arriving in the river as the main raw material. The glassware was then exported in collier brigs. The period from 1730 to 1785 was the highpoint of Newcastle glass manufacture, when the local glassmakers produced the 'Newcastle Light Baluster'. The glassmaking industry still exists in the west end of the city with local Artist and Glassmaker Jane Charles carrying on over four hundred years of hot glass blowing in Newcastle upon Tyne.

 

Locomotive manufacture

In 1823 George Stephenson and his son Robert established the world's first locomotive factory near Forth Street in Newcastle. Here they built locomotives for the Stockton and Darlington Railway and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, as well as many others. It was here that the famous locomotive Rocket was designed and manufactured in preparation for the Rainhill Trials. Apart from building locomotives for the British market, the Newcastle works also produced locomotives for Europe and America. The Forth Street works continued to build locomotives until 1960.

 

Shipbuilding

In 1296 a wooden, 135 ft (41 m) long galley was constructed at the mouth of the Lort Burn in Newcastle, as part of a twenty-ship order from the king. The ship cost £205, and is the earliest record of shipbuilding in Newcastle. However the rise of the Tyne as a shipbuilding area was due to the need for collier brigs for the coal export trade. These wooden sailing ships were usually built locally, establishing local expertise in building ships. As ships changed from wood to steel, and from sail to steam, the local shipbuilding industry changed to build the new ships. Although shipbuilding was carried out up and down both sides of the river, the two main areas for building ships in Newcastle were Elswick, to the west, and Walker, to the east. By 1800 Tyneside was the third largest producer of ships in Britain. Unfortunately, after the Second World War, lack of modernisation and competition from abroad gradually caused the local industry to decline and die.

 

Armaments

In 1847 William Armstrong established a huge factory in Elswick, west of Newcastle. This was initially used to produce hydraulic cranes but subsequently began also to produce guns for both the army and the navy. After the Swing Bridge was built in 1876 allowing ships to pass up river, warships could have their armaments fitted alongside the Elswick works. Armstrong's company took over its industrial rival, Joseph Whitworth of Manchester in 1897.

 

Steam turbines

Charles Algernon Parsons invented the steam turbine and, in 1889, founded his own company C. A. Parsons and Company in Heaton, Newcastle to make steam turbines. Shortly after this, he realised that steam turbines could be used to propel ships and, in 1897, he founded a second company, Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company in Wallsend. It is there that he designed and manufactured Turbinia. Parsons turbines were initially used in warships but soon came to be used in merchant and passenger vessels, including the liner Mauretania which held the blue riband for the Atlantic crossing until 1929. Parsons' company in Heaton began to make turbo-generators for power stations and supplied power stations all over the world. The Heaton works, reduced in size, remains as part of the Siemens AG industrial giant.

 

Pottery

In 1762 the Maling pottery was founded in Sunderland by French Huguenots, but transferred to Newcastle in 1817. A factory was built in the Ouseburn area of the city. The factory was rebuilt twice, finally occupying a 14-acre (57,000 m2) site that was claimed to be the biggest pottery in the world and which had its own railway station. The pottery pioneered use of machines in making potteries as opposed to hand production. In the 1890s the company went up-market and employed in-house designers. The period up to the Second World War was the most profitable with a constant stream of new designs being introduced. However, after the war, production gradually declined and the company closed in 1963.

 

Expansion of the city

Newcastle was one of the boroughs reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835: the reformed municipal borough included the parishes of Byker, Elswick, Heaton, Jesmond, Newcastle All Saints, Newcastle St Andrew, Newcastle St John, Newcastle St Nicholas, and Westgate. The urban districts of Benwell and Fenham and Walker were added in 1904. In 1935, Newcastle gained Kenton and parts of the parishes of West Brunton, East Denton, Fawdon, Longbenton. The most recent expansion in Newcastle's boundaries took place under the Local Government Act 1972 on 1 April 1974, when Newcastle became a metropolitan borough, also including the urban districts of Gosforth and Newburn, and the parishes of Brunswick, Dinnington, Hazlerigg, North Gosforth and Woolsington from the Castle Ward Rural District, and the village of Westerhope.

 

Meanwhile Northumberland County Council was formed under the Local Government Act 1888 and benefited from a dedicated meeting place when County Hall was completed in the Castle Garth area of Newcastle in 1910. Following the Local Government Act 1972 County Hall relocated to Morpeth in April 1981.

 

Twentieth century

In 1925 work began on a new high-level road bridge to span the Tyne Gorge between Newcastle and Gateshead. The capacity of the existing High-Level Bridge and Swing Bridge were being strained to the limit, and an additional bridge had been discussed for a long time. The contract was awarded to the Dorman Long Company and the bridge was finally opened by King George V in 1928. The road deck was 84 feet (26 m) above the river and was supported by a 531 feet (162 m) steel arch. The new Tyne Bridge quickly became a symbol for Newcastle and Tyneside, and remains so today.

 

During the Second World War, Newcastle was largely spared the horrors inflicted upon other British cities bombed during the Blitz. Although the armaments factories and shipyards along the River Tyne were targeted by the Luftwaffe, they largely escaped unscathed. Manors goods yard and railway terminal, to the east of the city centre, and the suburbs of Jesmond and Heaton suffered bombing during 1941. There were 141 deaths and 587 injuries, a relatively small figure compared to the casualties in other industrial centres of Britain.

 

In 1963 the city gained its own university, the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, by act of parliament. A School of Medicine and Surgery had been established in Newcastle in 1834. This eventually developed into a college of medicine attached to Durham University. A college of physical science was also founded and became Armstrong College in 1904. In 1934 the two colleges merged to become King's College, Durham. This remained as part of Durham University until the new university was created in 1963. In 1992 the city gained its second university when Newcastle Polytechnic was granted university status as Northumbria University.

 

Newcastle City Council moved to the new Newcastle Civic Centre in 1968.

 

As heavy industries declined in the second half of the 20th century, large sections of the city centre were demolished along with many areas of slum housing. The leading political figure in the city during the 1960s was T. Dan Smith who oversaw a massive building programme of highrise housing estates and authorised the demolition of a quarter of the Georgian Grainger Town to make way for Eldon Square Shopping Centre. Smith's control in Newcastle collapsed when it was exposed that he had used public contracts to advantage himself and his business associates and for a time Newcastle became a byword for civic corruption as depicted in the films Get Carter and Stormy Monday and in the television series Our Friends in the North. However, much of the historic Grainger Town area survived and was, for the most part, fully restored in the late 1990s. Northumberland Street, initially the A1, was gradually closed to traffic from the 1970s and completely pedestrianised by 1998.

 

In 1978 a new rapid transport system, the Metro, was built, linking the Tyneside area. The system opened in August 1980. A new bridge was built to carry the Metro across the river between Gateshead and Newcastle. This was the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, commonly known as the Metro Bridge. Eventually the Metro system was extended to reach Newcastle Airport in 1991, and in 2002 the Metro system was extended to the nearby city of Sunderland.

 

As the 20th century progressed, trade on the Newcastle and Gateshead quaysides gradually declined, until by the 1980s both sides of the river were looking rather derelict. Shipping company offices had closed along with offices of firms related to shipping. There were also derelict warehouses lining the riverbank. Local government produced a master plan to re-develop the Newcastle quayside and this was begun in the 1990s. New offices, restaurants, bars and residential accommodation were built and the area has changed in the space of a few years into a vibrant area, partially returning the focus of Newcastle to the riverside, where it was in medieval times.

 

The Gateshead Millennium Bridge, a foot and cycle bridge, 26 feet (7.9 m) wide and 413 feet (126 m) long, was completed in 2001. The road deck is in the form of a curve and is supported by a steel arch. To allow ships to pass, the whole structure, both arch and road-deck, rotates on huge bearings at either end so that the road deck is lifted. The bridge can be said to open and shut like a human eye. It is an important addition to the re-developed quayside area, providing a vital link between the Newcastle and Gateshead quaysides.

 

Recent developments

Today the city is a vibrant centre for office and retail employment, but just a short distance away there are impoverished inner-city housing estates, in areas originally built to provide affordable housing for employees of the shipyards and other heavy industries that lined the River Tyne. In the 2010s Newcastle City Council began implementing plans to regenerate these depressed areas, such as those along the Ouseburn Valley.

Includes weapon options for all squad members

There's been a bit of rain recently. The big puddle in the cycle lane and Buckingham Park parking area has returned. Poorly designed to have a dip there with no drain to take the water away.

A calm evening by the Adur. The Seal seemed to be tracking this couple in their rowing boat as they headed downstream.

♡ includes

. style card with landmarks

. shape for reborn

. shape for legacy

. eyebrow shape

Includes categories (purple), key words (orange) and suggested activities (blue/green).

 

Found here: cstep.csumb.edu/Obj_tutorial/bloomwheel3.gif

 

May remake this - it needs a sense of hierarchy and perhaps to be 3D...

This is me Lego mach 5 racing car from speed racer. a few years back we got some speed racer sets based on the movie that was released at the time, but this one is based on the original cartoon series. Besides the 5 on the side, this build shouldn't need any stickers for something like the M on the front.

 

This build includes several gadgets that were featured in the show like saws, jacks, a homing robot and a periscope (unfortunately I wasn't able to get a full glass down over the vehicle for its submarine mode). It also has space for 1 minifigure.

"The Woodstock Village Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. It includes the village center and additional properties along the Ottauquechee River. The district covers an area of 275 acres (111 ha) encompassing 95 buildings, sites, and structures that contribute to the historical significance of the area. The center of the district is an elliptical village green located at the junction of U.S. Route 4 and Vermont Route 106. Around the green and along the main road following the river are a number of residential, commercial, and public buildings showcasing architectural development from the late 18th to late 19th centuries. One of these buildings is The Norman Williams Public Library, built by Norman's son, Dr. Edward H. Williams, on the site where their home had stood previously. The district also includes the Billings Farm and Museum, and the George Perkins Marsh Boyhood Home, the architectural centerpiece of Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park, and F. H. Gillingham & Sons, the oldest, same-family operated general store in Vermont.

 

Woodstock is the shire town (county seat) of Windsor County, Vermont, United States. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 3,005. It includes the villages of Woodstock, South Woodstock, Taftsville, and West Woodstock.

 

Chartered by New Hampshire Governor Benning Wentworth on July 10, 1761, the town was a New Hampshire grant to David Page and 61 others. It was named after Woodstock in Oxfordshire, England, as a homage to both Blenheim Palace and its owner, George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough. The town was first settled in 1768 by James Sanderson and his family. In 1776, Joab Hoisington built a gristmill, followed by a sawmill, on the south branch of the Ottauquechee River. The town was incorporated in 1837.

 

Although the Revolution slowed settlement, Woodstock developed rapidly once the war ended in 1783. The Vermont General Assembly met here in 1807 before moving the next year to the new capital at Montpelier. Waterfalls in the Ottauquechee River provided water power to operate mills. Factories made scythes and axes, carding machines, and woolens. There was a machine shop and gunsmith shop. Manufacturers also produced furniture, wooden wares, window sashes and blinds. Carriages, horse harnesses, saddles, luggage trunks and leather goods were also manufactured. By 1859, the population was 3,041. The Woodstock Railroad opened to White River Junction on September 29, 1875, carrying freight and tourists. The Woodstock Inn opened in 1892.

 

The Industrial Revolution helped the town grow prosperous. The economy is now largely driven by tourism. Woodstock has the 20th highest per-capita income of Vermont towns as reported by the United States Census, and a high percentage of homes owned by non-residents. The town's central square, called the Green, is bordered by restored late Georgian, Federal Style, and Greek Revival houses. The cost of real estate in the district adjoining the Green is among the highest in the state. The seasonal presence of wealthy second-home owners from cities such as Boston and New York has contributed to the town's economic vitality and livelihood, while at the same time diminished its accessibility to native Vermonters.

 

The town maintains a free (paid for through taxation) community wi-fi internet service that covers most of the village of Woodstock, dubbed "Wireless Woodstock"." - info from Wikipedia.

 

The fall of 2022 I did my 3rd major cycling tour. I began my adventure in Montreal, Canada and finished in Savannah, GA. This tour took me through the oldest parts of Quebec and the 13 original US states. During this adventure I cycled 7,126 km over the course of 2.5 months and took more than 68,000 photos. As with my previous tours, a major focus was to photograph historic architecture.

 

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The Wigwam Motels, also known as the "Wigwam Villages," is a motel chain in the United States built during the 1930s and 1940s. The rooms are built in the form of tipis, mistakenly referred to as wigwams. It originally had seven different locations: two locations in Kentucky and one each in Alabama, Florida, Arizona, Louisiana, and California.

 

They are very distinctive historic landmarks. Two of the three surviving motels are located on historic U.S. Route 66: in Holbrook, Arizona, and in San Bernardino, California. All three of the surviving motels are listed on the National Register of Historic Places: the Wigwam Motel in Cave City, Kentucky, was listed in 1988 under the official designation of Wigwam Village #2; the Wigwam Motel in Arizona was listed as Wigwam Village #6 in 2002; and the Wigwam Motel in California was listed in 2012 as Wigwam Village #7.

 

Frank A. Redford developed the Village after adding tipi-shaped motel units around a museum-shop he had built to house his collection of Native American artifacts. He applied for a patent on the ornamental design of the buildings on December 17, 1935, and was granted Design Patent 98,617 on February 18, 1936. The original drawing includes the swastika, at the time a symbol associated with Native Americans or often worn as a good-luck charm.

 

Seven Wigwam Villages were built between 1933 and 1949.

 

Wigwam villages

Wigwam Village#1 in Horse Cave, Kentucky (1979)

The first Wigwam Village was built in 1933 by Frank A. Redford. It was located on the corner of US-31E and Hwy 218 in Horse Cave, Kentucky.

 

The central building and gas pumps are visible on undated postcards. Six more wigwams were built to be used as guest rooms.

 

Village #1 closed in 1935 when the nearby Wigwam Village #2 was opened, but operated under different names until it was eventually abandoned; it was razed in 1982.

 

Village #2: Cave City, Kentucky

Wigwam Village #2 was built in 1937 on U.S. Route 31W[6] in Cave City, Kentucky, close to Mammoth Cave National Park and a few miles south of the original Wigwam Village #1. The address is 601 North Dixie Hwy, Cave City, Kentucky. ( 37°08'43.0"N, 85°56'43.8"W )

 

It consists of 15 wigwams used as guest rooms that are arranged in a semicircle. In the center is a much bigger concrete and steel central structure that originally served as a restaurant, plus a common area with playground, recreation space, and pavilion. Each wigwam has a paved pad to accommodate one car. The restaurant is no longer in operation, but the motel is still open.

 

The diameter at the base of each tipi is 14 feet (4.3 m), and they are 32 feet (9.8 m) in height. Behind the main room of each unit is a small bathroom with sink, toilet, and shower. In 2008, the rooms contain the original restored hickory furniture and a window-mounted air conditioner. There are no telephones to maintain the original atmosphere of the motel, but the rooms do have cable TV and internet access.

 

Wigwam Village #2 is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It achieved this status on March 16, 1988.

 

Village #3: New Orleans, Louisiana

This wigwam village was built in 1940, on U.S. Route 61 in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans, Louisiana. It included a restaurant, cocktail bar, souvenir shop, and Esso service station. Village #3 went out of business in 1954, leaving little documentation behind.

 

Village #4: Orlando, Florida

Wigwam Village #4 was built in 1948, and was located at 700 S. Orange Blossom Trail. The builder, Jerry Kinsley, later served as mayor of Edgewood, Florida.

 

This relatively large wigwam village consisted of 27 guest rooms, each in a separate wigwam constructed to resemble a horseshoe shape, with four additional wigwams, likely housing offices and a restaurant. A pool was located in the middle of the lot. Village #4 claimed to be "Orlando's largest and finest Motel."

 

Village #4 was razed in 1974, and replaced with a Days Inn. The only part of the original design that survived was the swimming pool. An attempt to save some of the tipis by using a helicopter to airlift them to a YMCA Summer Camp failed, as they were too heavy to move. A 330-room Vacation Lodge now sits on the site.

 

Village #5: Bessemer, Alabama

The Wigwam Village #5 was built in 1940 in Bessemer, Alabama. It was located 4 miles (6.4 km) north of downtown Bessemer, on U.S. Route 11, and included 15 guest cabins, arranged in a semicircle around the restaurant, restrooms, and offices. Rather than the steel, lath, and plaster of Redford's original design, the Village #5 structures were made of steel, wood, and felt, then covered in canvas and treated with linseed oil.

 

Village #5 went out of business in 1964, and was demolished after falling into ruin, although the restaurant reportedly stood until 1970.

 

Village #6: Holbrook, Arizona

Arizona motel owner Chester E. Lewis built this Wigwam Village in 1950. It is located on the historic Route 66, at 811 West Hopi Drive in Holbrook, Arizona. Nearby places of interest include Petrified Forest National Park, Meteor Crater (Barringer Crater), and the Grand Canyon.

 

The plans for this motel were based on the original of Frank A. Redford. Lewis first became aware of the distinctive wigwam designs when passing through Cave City in 1938. He purchased the rights to Redford's design, as well as the right to use the name "Wigwam Village," in a novel royalty agreement: coin-operated radios would be installed in Lewis's Wigwam Village, and every dime inserted for 30 minutes of play would be sent to Redford as payment.

 

The motel is arranged as a square, with 15 concrete and steel wigwams on three sides and the main office on the fourth, flanked by two smaller sized wigwams; there was also originally a gas station on the complex. The individual units are called "wigwams," not "rooms" or "tepees" or "cabins." The units are numbered from 1 to 16, (there is no 13). The base diameter is 14 feet (4.3 m), with each unit 32 feet (9.8 m) in height. Behind the main room of each unit is a small bathroom with sink, toilet and shower. Current rooms contain the original restored hickory furniture, two double beds, satellite TV and a window-mounted air conditioner. In keeping with the authenticity of the restoration, there are no telephones or ice machine. Vintage restored automobiles from the 1960s and earlier are located throughout the parking area. Small green metal benches etched with the words "Wigwam Village #6" are scattered throughout the complex as well.

 

Lewis operated the motel until closing it in 1974 when Interstate 40 bypassed downtown Holbrook. Two years after his death in 1986, sons Clifton and Paul Lewis and daughter Elinor renovated the motel before reopening it in 1988.

 

The Lewis family continues to run and maintain Wigwam Village #6. Near the registration desk is a small room that contains much of Chester Lewis's memorabilia, including a collection of petrified wood.

 

Wigwam Village #6 has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places since May 2, 2002.

 

Village #7: Rialto/San Bernardino, California

Frank Redford built this complex for himself in 1947–49 and not as a franchise. The address of the motel is Rialto, California, but the motel is physically located in San Bernardino. It is on the boundary between the two cities on historic Route 66, with an address of 2728 East Foothill Boulevard, Rialto, California.

 

Unlike the one arch of wigwams in other surviving villages, Village #7 has a double row of wigwam guest rooms. They total 20 in number, as well as a base for what seems to be another never-completed wigwam in the back of the property. A central building is currently used as an office, with a lobby that is open 24 hours a day. There is also a swimming pool, a large grass front and palm trees surround the property.

 

The property had become very run down and rooms were rented by the hour, aggravated by a sign advertising "Do it in a Tee Pee" that is still on site in the back. The complex underwent renovation, for which the National Historic Route 66 Federation awarded the Cyrus Avery Award in 2005. Attention to detail was the main focus during renovation, as the wigwams lost their zigzag pattern.

 

Since 2012, the motel has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

 

The Tee Pee Motel in Wharton, Texas near Houston, which was built in 1942 by George and Toppie Belcher; George Belcher had the idea while on vacation in Wyoming. It is not of the same design nor heritage as the Wigwam Motels; each of the tipis at the Tee Pee Motel are of different shapes, and line up in a straight line. The Belchers sold the motel in 1955, and it had been in disrepair for decades. A man named Dan Ryan bought it in 1995, but subsequent attempts to locate him failed, and the taxes on the property weren't paid. Then, in July 2003, Bryon Woods, a diesel mechanic, won the Texas Lottery. At his wife's urging, Woods bought the property. Modern conveniences were added, and the Tee Pee Motel reopened for business in October 2006. In March 2012 the motel was the site of a large drugs seizure. It closed in 2017, due to flood damage from Hurricane Harvey.

 

Similar motels also stood in San Antonio, Port Neches, and Corsicana, Texas.

 

The motels and their imitators have been parodied many times. Rockstar's 2004 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas game contains a Tee Pee Motel. In the 2006 Pixar film Cars, one of the characters Sally Carrera runs a "newly refurbished" neon-lit motel that is clearly inspired by Wigwam Village #6. The motel is called the Cozy Cone Motel, and each room is fashioned as a traffic cone.

 

In 2012 a digitally altered image of Wigwam Village #6 appeared in an advertisement for Microtel Inn and Suites.

 

Wigwam number 1 of the Holbrook, Arizona, Wigwam Village #6 was featured in the second episode of Oprah and Gayle's Big Adventures on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

 

Wigwam Village #6 is featured in the 1991 movie The Dark Wind, based on the 1982 Tony Hillerman novel of the same name.

 

Wigwam Village #7 is featured in Bobcat Goldthwait's 2011 black comedy film God Bless America. Joan Didion mentions #7 in her essay "Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream" in her book, Slouching Toward Bethlehem.

 

Arizona is a state in the Southwestern region of the United States. Arizona is part of the Four Corners region with Utah to the north, Colorado to the northeast, and New Mexico to the east; its other neighboring states are Nevada to the northwest, California to the west and the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California to the south and southwest. It is the 6th-largest and the 14th-most-populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix.

 

Arizona is the 48th state and last of the contiguous states to be admitted to the Union, achieving statehood on February 14, 1912. Historically part of the territory of Alta California and Nuevo México in New Spain, it became part of independent Mexico in 1821. After being defeated in the Mexican–American War, Mexico ceded much of this territory to the United States in 1848, where the area became part of the territory of New Mexico. The southernmost portion of the state was acquired in 1853 through the Gadsden Purchase.

 

Southern Arizona is known for its desert climate, with very hot summers and mild winters. Northern Arizona features forests of pine, Douglas fir, and spruce trees; the Colorado Plateau; mountain ranges (such as the San Francisco Mountains); as well as large, deep canyons, with much more moderate summer temperatures and significant winter snowfalls. There are ski resorts in the areas of Flagstaff, Sunrise, and Tucson. In addition to the internationally known Grand Canyon National Park, which is one of the world's seven natural wonders, there are several national forests, national parks, and national monuments.

 

Arizona's population and economy have grown dramatically since the 1950s because of inward migration, and the state is now a major hub of the Sun Belt. Cities such as Phoenix and Tucson have developed large, sprawling suburban areas. Many large companies, such as PetSmart and Circle K, have headquarters in the state, and Arizona is home to major universities, including the University of Arizona and Arizona State University. The state is known for a history of conservative politicians such as Barry Goldwater and John McCain, though it has become a swing state since the 1990s.

 

Arizona is home to a diverse population. About one-quarter of the state is made up of Indian reservations that serve as the home of 27 federally recognized Native American tribes, including the Navajo Nation, the largest in the state and the United States, with more than 300,000 citizens. Since the 1980s, the proportion of Hispanics in the state's population has grown significantly owing to migration from Mexico. A substantial portion of the population are followers of the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

 

The history of Arizona encompasses the Paleo-Indian, Archaic, Post-Archaic, Spanish, Mexican, and American periods. About 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, Paleo-Indians settled in what is now Arizona. A few thousand years ago, the Ancestral Puebloan, the Hohokam, the Mogollon and the Sinagua cultures inhabited the state. However, all of these civilizations mysteriously disappeared from the region in the 15th and 16th centuries. Today, countless ancient ruins can be found in Arizona. Arizona was part of the state of Sonora, Mexico from 1822, but the settled population was small. In 1848, under the terms of the Mexican Cession the United States took possession of Arizona above the Gila River after the Mexican War, and became part of the Territory of New Mexico. By means of the Gadsden Purchase, the United States secured the northern part of the state of Sonora, which is now Arizona south of the Gila River in 1854.

 

In 1863, Arizona was split off from the Territory of New Mexico to form the Arizona Territory. The remoteness of the region was eased by the arrival of railroads in 1880. Arizona became a state in 1912 but was primarily rural with an economy based on cattle, cotton, citrus, and copper. Dramatic growth came after 1945, as retirees and young families who appreciated the warm weather and low costs emigrated from the Northeast and Midwest.

 

In the Mexican–American War, the garrison commander avoided conflict with Lieutenant Colonel Cooke and the Mormon Battalion, withdrawing while the Americans marched through the town on their way to California. In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), Mexico ceded to the U.S. the northern 70% of modern-day Arizona above the Sonora border along the Gila River. During the California Gold Rush, an upwards of 50,000 people traveled through on the Southern Emigrant Trail pioneered by Cooke, to reach the gold fields in 1849. The Pima Villages often sold fresh food and provided relief to distressed travelers among this throng and to others in subsequent years.

 

Paleo-Indians settled what is now Arizona around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. According to most archaeologists, the Paleo-Indians initially followed herds of big game—megafauna such as mammoths, mastodons, and bison—into North America. The traveling groups also collected and utilized a wide variety of smaller game animals, fish, and a wide variety of plants. These people were likely characterized by highly mobile bands of approximately 20 or 50 members of an extended family, moving from place to place as resources were depleted and additional supplies needed. Paleoindian groups were efficient hunters and created and carried a variety of tools, some highly specialized, for hunting, butchering and hide processing. These paleolithic people utilized the environment that they lived in near water sources, including rivers, swamps and marshes, which had an abundance of fish, and drew birds and game animals. Big game, including bison, mammoths and ground sloths, also were attracted to these water sources. At the latest by 9500 BCE, bands of hunters wandered as far south as Arizona, where they found a desert grassland and hunted mule deer, antelope and other small mammals.

 

As populations of larger game began to diminish, possibly as a result of intense hunting and rapid environmental changes, Late Paleoindian groups would come to rely more on other facets of their subsistence pattern, including increased hunting of bison, mule deer and antelope. Nets and the atlatl to hunt water fowl, ducks, small animals and antelope. Hunting was especially important in winter and spring months when plant foods were scarce.

 

The Archaic time frame is defined culturally as a transition from a hunting/gathering lifestyle to one involving agriculture and permanent, if only seasonally occupied, settlements. In the Southwest, the Archaic is generally dated from 8000 years ago to approximately 1800 to 2000 years ago. During this time the people of the southwest developed a variety of subsistence strategies, all using their own specific techniques. The nutritive value of weed and grass seeds was discovered and flat rocks were used to grind flour to produce gruels and breads. This use of grinding slabs in about 7500 BCE marks the beginning of the Archaic tradition. Small bands of people traveled throughout the area, gathering plants such as cactus fruits, mesquite beans, acorns, and pine nuts and annually establishing camps at collection points.

 

Late in the Archaic Period, corn, probably introduced into the region from central Mexico, was planted near camps with permanent water access. Distinct types of corn have been identified in the more well-watered highlands and the desert areas, which may imply local mutation or successive introduction of differing species. Emerging domesticated crops also included beans and squash.

 

About 3,500 years ago, climate change led to changing patterns in water sources, leading to a dramatically decreased population. However, family-based groups took shelter in south facing caves and rock overhangs within canyon walls. Occasionally, these people lived in small semisedentary hamlets in open areas. Evidence of significant occupation has been found in the northern part of Arizona.

 

In the Post-Archaic period, the Ancestral Puebloan, the Hohokam, the Mogollon and Sinagua cultures inhabited what is now Arizona. These cultures built structures made out of stone. Some of the structures that these cultures built are called pueblos. Pueblos are monumental structures that housed dozens to thousands of people. In some Ancestral Puebloan towns and villages, Hohokam towns and villages, Mogollon towns and villages, and Sinagua towns and villages, the pueblo housed the entire town. Surrounding the pueblos were often farms where farmers would plant and harvest crops to feed the community. Sometimes, pueblos and other buildings were built in caves in cliffs.

 

The Ancestral Puebloans were an ancient Pre-Columbian Native American civilization that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado. The Ancestral Puebloans are believed to have developed, at least in part, from the Oshara tradition, who developed from the Picosa culture.

 

They lived in a range of structures that included small family pit houses, larger structures to house clans, grand pueblos, and cliff-sited dwellings for defense. The Ancestral Puebloans possessed a complex network that stretched across the Colorado Plateau linking hundreds of communities and population centers. They held a distinct knowledge of celestial sciences that found form in their architecture. The kiva, a congregational space that was used chiefly for ceremonial purposes, was an integral part of this ancient people's community structure. Some of their most impressive structures were built in what is now Arizona.

 

Hohokam was a Pre-Columbian culture in the North American Southwest in what is now part of Arizona, United States, and Sonora, Mexico. Hohokam practiced a specific culture, sometimes referred to as Hohokam culture, which has been distinguished by archeologists. People who practiced the culture can be called Hohokam as well, but more often, they are distinguished as Hohokam people to avoid confusion.

 

Most archaeologists agree that the Hohokam culture existed between c. 300 and c. 1450 CE, but cultural precursors may have been in the area as early as 300 BC. Whether Hohokam culture was unified politically remains under controversy. Hohokam culture may have just given unrelated neighboring communities common ground to help them to work together to survive their harsh desert environment.

 

The Mogollon culture was an ancient Pre-Columbian culture of Native American peoples from Southern New Mexico and Arizona, Northern Sonora and Chihuahua, and Western Texas. The northern part of this region is Oasisamerica, while the southern span of the Mogollon culture is known as Aridoamerica.

 

The Mogollon culture was one of the major prehistoric Southwestern cultural divisions of the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico. The culture flourished from c. 200 CE, to c. 1450 CE or 1540 CE, when the Spanish arrived.

 

The Sinagua culture was a Pre-Columbian culture that occupied a large area in central Arizona from the Little Colorado River, near Flagstaff, to the Verde River, near Sedona, including the Verde Valley, area around San Francisco Mountain, and significant portions of the Mogollon Rim country, between approximately 500 CE and 1425 CE. Besides ceremonial kivas, their pueblos had large "community rooms" and some featured ballcourts and walled courtyards, similar to those of the Hohokam culture. Since fully developed Sinagua sites emerged in central Arizona around 500 CE, it is believed they migrated from east-central Arizona, possibly emerging from the Mogollon culture.

 

The history of Arizona as recorded by Europeans began in 1539 with the first documented exploration of the area by Marcos de Niza, early work expanded the following year when Francisco Vásquez de Coronado entered the area as well.

 

The Spanish established a few missions in southern Arizona in the 1680s by Father Eusebio Francisco Kino along the Santa Cruz River, in what was then the Pimería Alta region of Sonora. The Spanish also established presidios in Tubac and Tucson in 1752 and 1775. The area north of the Gila River was governed by the Province of Las California under the Spanish until 1804, when the Californian portion of Arizona became part of Alta California under the Spanish and Mexican governments.

 

In 1849, the California Gold Rush led as many as 50,000 miners to travel across the region, leading to a boom in Arizona's population. In 1850, Arizona and New Mexico formed the New Mexico Territory.

 

In 1853, President Franklin Pierce sent James Gadsden to Mexico City to negotiate with Santa Anna, and the United States bought the remaining southern strip area of Arizona and New Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase. A treaty was signed in Mexico in December 1853, and then, with modifications, approved by the US Senate in June 1854, setting the southern boundary of Arizona and of New Mexico.

 

Before 1846 the Apache raiders expelled most Mexican ranchers. One result was that large herds of wild cattle roamed southeastern Arizona. By 1850, the herds were gone, killed by Apaches, American sportsmen, contract hunting for the towns of Fronteras and Santa Cruz, and roundups to sell to hungry Mexican War soldiers, and forty-niners en route to California.

 

During the Civil War, on March 16, 1861, citizens in southern New Mexico Territory around Mesilla (now in New Mexico) and Tucson invited take-over by the Confederacy. They especially wanted restoration of mail service. These secessionists hoped that a Confederate Territory of Arizona (CSA) would take control, but in March 1862, Union troops from California captured the Confederate Territory of Arizona and returned it to the New Mexico Territory.

 

The Battle of Picacho Pass, April 15, 1862, was a battle of the Civil War fought in the CSA and one of many battles to occur in Arizona during the war among three sides—Apaches, Confederates and Union forces. In 1863, the U.S. split up New Mexico along a north–south line to create the Arizona Territory. The first government officials to arrive established the territory capital in Prescott in 1864. The capital was later moved to Tucson, back to Prescott, and then to its final location in Phoenix in a series of controversial moves as different regions of the territory gained and lost political influence with the growth and development of the territory.

 

In the late 19th century the Army built a series of forts to encourage the Natives to stay in their territory and to act as a buffer from the settlers. The first was Fort Defiance. It was established on September 18, 1851, by Col. Edwin V. Sumner to create a military presence in Diné bikéyah (Navajo territory). Sumner broke up the fort at Santa Fe for this purpose, creating the first military post in what is now Arizona. He left Major Electus Backus in charge. Small skirmishes were common between raiding Navajo and counter raiding citizens. In April 1860 one thousand Navajo warriors under Manuelito attacked the fort and were beaten off.

 

The fort was abandoned at the start of the Civil War but was reoccupied in 1863 by Colonel Kit Carson and the 1st New Mexico Infantry. Carson was tasked by Brigadier-General James H. Carleton, Commander of the Federal District of New Mexico, to kill Navajo men, destroy crops, wells, houses and livestock. These tactics forced 9000 Navajos to take the Long Walk to a reservation at Bosque Redondo, New Mexico. The Bosque was a complete failure. In 1868 the Navajo signed another treaty and were allowed to go back to part of their former territory. The returning Navajo were restocked with sheep and other livestock. Fort Defiance was the agency for the new Navajo reservation until 1936; today it provides medical services to the region.

 

Fort Apache was built on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation by soldiers from the 1st Cavalry and 21st Infantry in 1870. Only one small battle took place, in September 1881, with three soldiers wounded. When the reservation Indians were granted U.S. citizenship in 1924, the fort was permanently closed down. Fort Huachuca, east of Tucson, was founded in 1877 as the base for operations against Apaches and raiders from Mexico. From 1913 to 1933 the fort was the base for the "Buffalo Soldiers" of the 10th Cavalry Regiment. During World War II, the fort expanded to 25,000 soldiers, mostly in segregated all-black units. Today the fort remains in operation and houses the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and the U.S. Army Network.

 

The Pueblos in Arizona were relatively peaceful through the Navajo and Apache Wars. However, in June 1891, the army had to bring in troops to stop Oraibi from preventing a school from being built on their mesa.

 

After the Civil War, Texans brought large-scale ranching to southern Arizona. They introduced their proven range methods to the new grass country. Texas rustlers also came, and brought lawlessness. Inexperienced ranchers brought poor management, resulting in overstocking, and introduced destructive diseases. Local cattleman organizations were formed to handle these problems. The Territory experienced a cattle boom in 1873–91, as the herds were expanded from 40,000 to 1.5 million head. However, the drought of 1891–93 killed off over half the cattle and produced severe overgrazing. Efforts to restore the rangeland between 1905 and 1934 had limited success, but ranching continued on a smaller scale.

 

Arizona's last major drought occurred during Dust Bowl years of 1933–34. This time Washington stepped in as the Agricultural Adjustment Administration spent $100 million to buy up the starving cattle. The Taylor Grazing Act placed federal and state agencies in control of livestock numbers on public lands. Most of the land in Arizona is owned by the federal government which leased grazing land to ranchers at low cost. Ranchers invested heavily in blooded stock and equipment. James Wilson states that after 1950, higher fees and restrictions in the name of land conservation caused a sizable reduction in available grazing land. The ranchers had installed three-fifths of the fences, dikes, diversion dams, cattleguards, and other improvements, but the new rules reduced the value of that investment. In the end, Wilson believes, sportsmen and environmentalists maintained a political advantage by denouncing the ranchers as political corrupted land-grabbers who exploited the publicly owned natural resources.

 

On February 23, 1883, United Verde Copper Company was incorporated under New York law. The small mining camp next to the mine was given a proper name, 'Jerome.' The town was named after the family which had invested a large amount of capital. In 1885 Lewis Williams opened a copper smelter in Bisbee and the copper boom began, as the nation turned to copper wires for electricity. The arrival of railroads in the 1880s made mining even more profitable, and national corporations bought control of the mines and invested in new equipment. Mining operations flourished in numerous boom towns, such as Bisbee, Jerome, Douglas, Ajo and Miami.

 

Arizona's "wild west" reputation was well deserved. Tombstone was a notorious mining town that flourished longer than most, from 1877 to 1929. Silver was discovered in 1877, and by 1881 the town had a population of over 10,000. Western story tellers and Hollywood film makers made as much money in Tombstone as anyone, thanks to the arrival of Wyatt Earp and his brothers in 1879. They bought shares in the Vizina mine, water rights, and gambling concessions, but Virgil, Morgan and Wyatt were soon appointed as federal and local marshals. They killed three outlaws in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, the most famous gunfight of the Old West.

 

In the aftermath, Virgil Earp was maimed in an ambush and Morgan Earp was assassinated while playing billiards. Walter Noble Burns's novel Tombstone (1927) made Earp famous. Hollywood celebrated Earp's Tombstone days with John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946), John Sturges's Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) and Hour of the Gun (1967), Frank Perry's Doc (1971), George Cosmatos's Tombstone (1993), and Lawrence Kasdan's Wyatt Earp (1994). They solidified Earp's modern reputation as the Old West's deadliest gunman.

 

Jennie Bauters (1862–1905) operated brothels in the Territory from 1896 to 1905. She was an astute businesswoman with an eye for real estate appreciation, and a way with the town fathers of Jerome regarding taxes and restrictive ordinances. She was not always sitting pretty; her brothels were burned in a series of major fires that swept the business district; her girls were often drug addicts. As respectability closed in on her, in 1903 she relocated to the mining camp of Acme. In 1905, she was murdered by a man who had posed as her husband.

 

By 1869 Americans were reading John Wesley Powell's reports of his explorations of the Colorado River. In 1901, the Santa Fe Railroad reached Grand Canyon's South Rim. With railroad, restaurant and hotel entrepreneur Fred Harvey leading the way, large-scale tourism began that has never abated. The Grand Canyon has become an iconic symbol of the West and the nation as a whole.

 

The Chinese came to Arizona with the construction of the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1880. Tucson was the main railroad center and soon had a Chinatown with laundries for the general population and a rich mix of restaurants, groceries, and services for the residents. Chinese and Mexican merchants and farmers transcended racial differences to form 'guanxi,' which were relations of friendship and trust. Chinese leased land from Mexicans, operated grocery stores, and aided compatriots attempting to enter the United States from Mexico after the Mexican Revolution in 1910. Chinese merchants helped supply General John Pershing's army in its expedition against Pancho Villa. Successful Chinese in Tucson led a viable community based on social integration, friendship, and kinship.

 

In February 1903, U.S. Senator Hamilton Kean spoke against Arizona's statehood. He said Mormons who fled from Idaho to Mexico would return to the U.S. and mix in the politics of Arizona.

 

In 1912, Arizona almost entered the Union as part of New Mexico in a Republican plan to keep control of the U.S. Senate. The plan, while accepted by most in New Mexico, was rejected by most Arizonans. Progressives in Arizona favored inclusion in the state constitution of the initiative, referendum, recall, direct election of senators, woman suffrage, and other reforms. Most of these proposals were included in the constitution that was rejected by Congress.

 

A new constitution was offered with the problematic provisions removed. Congress then voted to approve statehood, and President Taft signed the statehood bill on February 14, 1912. State residents promptly put the provisions back in. Hispanics had little voice or power. Only one of the 53 delegates at the constitutional convention was Hispanic, and he refused to sign. In 1912 women gained suffrage in the state, eight years before the country as a whole.

 

Arizona's first Congressman was Carl Hayden (1877–1972). He was the son of a Yankee merchant who had moved to Tempe because he needed dry heat for his bad lungs. Carl attended Stanford University and moved up the political ladder as town councilman, county treasurer, and Maricopa County sheriff, where he nabbed Arizona's last train robbers. He also started building a coalition to develop the state's water resources, a lifelong interest. A liberal Democrat his entire career, Hayden was elected to Congress in 1912 and moved to the Senate in 1926.

 

Reelection followed every six years as he advanced toward the chairmanship of the powerful Appropriations Committee, which he reached in 1955. His only difficult campaign came in 1962, at age 85, when he defeated a young conservative. He retired in 1968 after a record 56 years in Congress. His great achievement was his 41-year battle to enact the Central Arizona Project that would provide water for future growth.

 

The Great Depression of 1929–39 hit Arizona hard. At first local, state and private relief efforts focused on charity, especially by the Community Chest and Organized Charities programs. Federal money started arriving with the Federal Emergency Relief Committee in 1930. Different agencies promoted aid to the unemployed, tuberculosis patients, transients, and illegal immigrants. The money ran out by 1931 or 1932, and conditions were bad until New Deal relief operations began on a large scale in 1933.

 

Construction programs were important, especially the Hoover Dam (originally called Boulder Dam), begun by President Herbert Hoover. It is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border with Nevada. It was constructed by the Federal Bureau of Reclamation between 1931 and 1936. It operationalized a schedule of water use set by the Colorado River Compact of 1922 that gave Arizona 19% of the river's water, with 25% to Nevada and the rest to California.

 

Construction of military bases in Arizona was a national priority because of the state's excellent flying weather and clear skies, large amounts of unoccupied land, good railroads, cheap labor, low taxes, and its proximity to California's aviation industry. Arizona was attractive to both the military and private firms and they stayed after the war.

 

Fort Huachuca became one of the largest nearly-all-black Army forts, with quarters for 1,300 officers and 24,000 enlisted soldiers. The 92nd and 93rd Infantry Divisions, composed of African-American troops, trained there.

 

During the war, Mexican-American community organizations were very active in patriotic efforts to support American troops abroad, and made efforts to support the war effort materially and to provide moral support for the American servicemen fighting the war, especially the Mexican-American servicemen from local communities. Some of the community projects were cooperative ventures in which members of both the Mexican-American and Anglo communities participated. Most efforts made in the Mexican-American community represented localized American home front activities that were separate from the activities of the Anglo community.

 

Mexican-American women organized to assist their servicemen and the war effort. An underlying goal of the Spanish-American Mothers and Wives Association was the reinforcement of the woman's role in Spanish-Mexican culture. The organization raised thousands of dollars, wrote letters, and joined in numerous celebrations of their culture and their support for Mexican-American servicemen. Membership reached over 300 during the war and eventually ended its existence in 1976.

 

Heavy government spending during World War II revitalized the Arizona economy, which was still based on copper mining, citrus and cotton crops and cattle ranching, with a growing tourist business.

 

Military installations peppered the state, such as Davis-Monthan Field in Tucson, the main training center for air force bomber pilots. Two relocation camps opened for Japanese and Japanese Americans brought in from the West Coast.

 

After World War II the population grew rapidly, increasing sevenfold between 1950 and 2000, from 700,000 to over 5 million. Most of the growth was in the Phoenix area, with Tucson a distant second. Urban growth doomed the state's citrus industry, as the groves were turned into housing developments.

 

The cost of water made growing cotton less profitable, and Arizona's production steadily declined. Manufacturing employment jumped from 49,000 in 1960 to 183,000 by 1985, with half the workers in well-paid positions. High-tech firms such as Motorola, Hughes Aircraft, Goodyear Aircraft, Honeywell, and IBM had offices in the Phoenix area. By 1959, Hughes Aircraft had built advanced missiles with 5,000 workers in Tucson.

 

Despite being a small state, Arizona produced several national leaders for both the Republican and Democratic parties. Two Republican Senators were presidential nominees: Barry Goldwater in 1964 and John McCain in 2008; both carried Arizona but lost the national election. Senator Ernest McFarland, a Democrat, was the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate from 1951 to 1952, and Congressman John Rhodes was the Republican Minority Leader in the House from 1973 to 1981. Democrats Bruce Babbitt (Governor 1978–87) and Morris Udall (Congressman 1961–90) were contenders for their party's presidential nominations. In 1981 Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court; she served until 2006.

 

Retirement communities

Warm winters and low cost of living attracted retirees from the so-called snowbelt, who moved permanently to Arizona after 1945, bringing their pensions, Social Security, and savings with them. Real estate entrepreneurs catered to them with new communities with amenities pitched to older people, and with few facilities for children. Typically they were gated communities with controlled access and had pools, recreation centers, and golf courses.

 

In 1954, two developers bought 320 acres (1.3 km2) of farmland near Phoenix and opened the nation's first planned community dedicated exclusively to retirees at Youngtown. In 1960, developer Del Webb, inspired by the amenities in Florida's trailer parks, added facilities for "active adults" in his new Sun City planned community near Phoenix. In 1962 Ross Cortese opened the first of his gated Leisure Worlds. Other developers copied the popular model, and by 2000 18% of the retirees in the state lived in such "lifestyle" communities.

 

The issues of the fragile natural environment, compounded by questions of water shortage and distribution, led to numerous debates. The debate crossed traditional lines, so that the leading conservative, Senator Barry Goldwater, was also keenly concerned. For example, Goldwater supported the controversial Colorado River Storage Project (CRSP). He wrote:

 

I feel very definitely that the [Nixon] administration is absolutely correct in cracking down on companies and corporations and municipalities that continue to pollute the nation's air and water. While I am a great believer in the free competitive enterprise system and all that it entails, I am an even stronger believer in the right of our people to live in a clean and pollution-free environment. To this end, it is my belief that when pollution is found, it should be halted at the source, even if this requires stringent government action against important segments of our national economy.

 

Water issues were central. Agriculture consumed 89% of the state's strictly limited water supply while generating only 3% of the state's income. The Groundwater Management Act of 1980, sponsored by Governor Bruce Babbitt, raised the price of water to farmers, while cities had to reach a "safe yield" so that the groundwater usage did not exceed natural replenishment. New housing developments had to prove they had enough water for the next hundred years. Desert foliage suitable for a dry region soon replaced grass.

 

Cotton acreage declined dramatically, freeing up land for suburban sprawl as well as releasing large amounts of water and ending the need for expensive specialized machinery. Cotton acreage plunged from 120,000 acres in 1997 to only 40,000 acres in 2005, even as the federal treasury gave the state's farmers over $678 million in cotton subsidies. Many farmers collect the subsidies but no longer grow cotton. About 80% of the state's cotton is exported to textile factories in China and (since the passage of NAFTA) to Mexico.

 

Super Bowl XXX was played in Tempe in 1996 and Super Bowl XLII was held in Glendale in 2008. Super Bowl XLIX was also held in Glendale in 2015.

 

Illegal immigration continued to be a prime concern within the state, and in April 2010, Arizona SB1070 was passed and signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer. The measure attracted national attention as the most thorough anti-illegal immigration measure in decades within the United States.

 

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head during a political event in Tucson on January 8, 2011. The shooting resulted in six deaths and several injuries. Giffords survived the attack and became an advocate for gun control.

 

On June 30, 2013, nineteen members of the Prescott Fire Department were killed fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire. The fatalities were members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a hotshot crew, of whom only one survived as he was working in another location.

 

Border crisis: by 2019 Arizona was one of the states most affected by the border crisis, with a high number of migrant crossings and detentions.

Includes teams from Deuel, Hot Springs, Madison, Parkston/Ethan/Hanson/Mt. Vernon. Permission granted for journalism outlets and educational purposes. Not for commercial use. Must be credited. Photo courtesy of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

©2021 SDPB

 

Kew Gardens is the world's largest collection of living plants. Founded in 1840 from the exotic garden at Kew Park in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, UK, its living collections include more than 30,000 different kinds of plants, while the herbarium, which is one of the largest in the world, has over seven million preserved plant specimens. The library contains more than 750,000 volumes, and the illustrations collection contains more than 175,000 prints and drawings of plants. It is one of London's top tourist attractions. In 2003, the gardens were put on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.

 

Kew Gardens, together with the botanic gardens at Wakehurst Place in Sussex, are managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (brand name Kew), an internationally important botanical research and education institution that employs 750 staff, and is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

 

The Kew site, which has been dated as formally starting in 1759, though can be traced back to the exotic garden at Kew Park, formed by Lord Capel John of Tewkesbury, consists of 121 hectares (300 acres) of gardens and botanical glasshouses, four Grade I listed buildings and 36 Grade II listed structures, all set in an internationally significant landscape.

 

Kew Gardens has its own police force, Kew Constabulary, which has been in operation since 1847.

 

History

Kew, the area in which Kew Gardens are situated, consists mainly of the gardens themselves and a small surrounding community. Royal residences in the area which would later influence the layout and construction of the gardens began in 1299 when Edward I moved his court to a manor house in neighbouring Richmond (then called Sheen). That manor house was later abandoned; however, Henry V built Sheen Palace in 1501, which, under the name Richmond Palace, became a permanent royal residence for Henry VII. Around the start of the 16th century courtiers attending Richmond Palace settled in Kew and built large houses. Early royal residences at Kew included Mary Tudor's house, which was in existence by 1522 when a driveway was built to connect it to the palace at Richmond. Around 1600, the land that would become the gardens was known as Kew Field, a large field strip farmed by one of the new private estates.

 

The exotic garden at Kew Park, formed by Lord Capel John of Tewkesbury, was enlarged and extended by Augusta, Dowager Princess of Wales, the widow of Frederick, Prince of Wales. The origins of Kew Gardens can be traced to the merging of the royal estates of Richmond and Kew in 1772. William Chambers built several garden structures, including the lofty Chinese pagoda built in 1761 which still remains. George III enriched the gardens, aided by William Aiton and Sir Joseph Banks. The old Kew Park (by then renamed the White House), was demolished in 1802. The "Dutch House" adjoining was purchased by George III in 1781 as a nursery for the royal children. It is a plain brick structure now known as Kew Palace.

 

Some early plants came from the walled garden established by William Coys at Stubbers in North Ockendon. The collections grew somewhat haphazardly until the appointment of the first collector, Francis Masson, in 1771. Capability Brown, who became England's most renowned landscape architect, applied for the position of master gardener at Kew, and was rejected.

 

In 1840 the gardens were adopted as a national botanical garden, in large part due to the efforts of the Royal Horticultural Society and its president William Cavendish. Under Kew's director, William Hooker, the gardens were increased to 30 hectares (75 acres) and the pleasure grounds, or arboretum, extended to 109 hectares (270 acres), and later to its present size of 121 hectares (300 acres). The first curator was John Smith.

 

The Palm House was built by architect Decimus Burton and iron-maker Richard Turner between 1844 and 1848, and was the first large-scale structural use of wrought iron. It is considered " the world's most important surviving Victorian glass and iron structure." The structure's panes of glass are all hand-blown. The Temperate House, which is twice as large as the Palm House, followed later in the 19th century. It is now the largest Victorian glasshouse in existence. Kew was the location of the successful effort in the 19th century to propagate rubber trees for cultivation outside South America.

 

In February 1913, the Tea House was burned down by suffragettes Olive Wharry and Lilian Lenton during a series of arson attacks in London.[19] Kew Gardens lost hundreds of trees in the Great Storm of 1987. From 1959 to 2007 Kew Gardens had the tallest flagpole in Britain. Made from a single Douglas-fir from Canada, it was given to mark both the centenary of the Canadian Province of British Columbia and the bicentenary of Kew Gardens. The flagpole was removed after damage by weather and woodpeckers.

 

In July 2003, the gardens were put on the list of World Heritage Sites by UNESCO.

 

Features

Treetop walkway

A new treetop walkway opened in 2008. This walkway is 18 metres (59 ft) high and 200 metres (660 ft) long and takes visitors into the tree canopy of a woodland glade. Visitors can ascend and descend by stairs or by a lift. The floor of the walkway is made from perforated metal and flexes as it is walked upon. The entire structure sways in the wind.

  

Sackler Crossing

The Sackler Crossing bridge, made of granite and bronze, opened in May 2006. Designed by Buro Happold and John Pawson, it crosses the lake and is named in honour of philanthropists Dr Mortimer and Theresa Sackler.

 

The minimalist-styled bridge is designed as a sweeping double curve of black granite. The sides of the bridge are formed of bronze posts that give the impression, from certain angles, of forming a solid wall whereas from others, and to those on the bridge, they are clearly individual entities that allow a view of the water beyond.

 

The bridge forms part of a path designed to encourage visitors to visit more of the gardens than had hitherto been popular and connects the two art galleries, via the Temperate and Evolution Houses and the woodland glade, to the Minka House and the Bamboo Garden.

 

The crossing won a special award from the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2008.

 

Vehicular tour

Kew Explorer is a service that takes a circular route around the gardens, provided by two 72-seater road trains that are fuelled by Calor Gas to minimise pollution. A commentary is provided by the driver and there are several stops.

   

Compost heap

Kew has one of the largest compost heaps in Europe, made from green and woody waste from the gardens and the manure from the stables of the Household Cavalry. The compost is mainly used in the gardens, but on occasion has been auctioned as part of a fundraising event for the gardens.

 

The compost heap is in an area of the gardens not accessible to the public, but a viewing platform, made of wood which had been illegally traded but seized by Customs officers in HMRC, has been erected to allow visitors to observe the heap as it goes through its cycle.

 

Guided walks

Free tours of the gardens are conducted daily by trained volunteers.

 

Plant houses

 

Alpine House

A narrow semicircular building of glass and steel latticework stands at the right, set amid an area of worked rock with a line of deciduous trees in the rear left, under a blue sky filled with large puffy white clouds. In front of it, curving slightly away to the left, is a wooden platform with benches on it and a thin metal guardrail in front of a low wet area with bright red flowers

 

In March 2006, the Davies Alpine House opened, the third version of an alpine house since 1887. Although only 16 metres (52 ft) long the apex of the roof arch extends to a height of 10 metres (33 ft) in order to allow the natural airflow of a building of this shape to aid in the all-important ventilation required for the type of plants to be housed.

 

The new house features a set of automatically operated blinds that prevent it overheating when the sun is too hot for the plants together with a system that blows a continuous stream of cool air over the plants. The main design aim of the house is to allow maximum light transmission. To this end the glass is of a special low iron type that allows 90 per cent of the ultraviolet light in sunlight to pass. It is attached by high tension steel cables so that no light is obstructed by traditional glazing bars.

 

To conserve energy the cooling air is not refrigerated but is cooled by being passed through a labyrinth of pipes buried under the house at a depth where the temperature remains suitable all year round. The house is designed so that the maximum temperature should not exceed 20 °C (68 °F).

 

Kew's collection of Alpine plants (defined as those that grow above the tree-line in their locale – ground level at the poles rising to over 2,000 metres (6,562 feet)), extends to over 7000. As the Alpine House can only house around 200 at a time the ones on show are regularly rotated.

  

The Nash Conservatory

Originally designed for Buckingham Palace, this was moved to Kew in 1836 by King William IV. With an abundance of natural light, the building is used various exhibitions, weddings, and private events. It is also now used to exhibit the winners of the photography competition.

  

Kew Orangery

The Orangery was designed by Sir William Chambers, and was completed in 1761. It measures 28 by 10 metres (92 by 33 ft). It was found to be too dark for its intended purpose of growing citrus plants and they were moved out in 1841. After many changes of use, it is currently used as a restaurant.

  

The Palm House and Parterre

The Palm House (1844–1848) was the result of cooperation between architect Decimus Burton and iron founder Richard Turner,[28] and continues upon the glass house design principles developed by John Claudius Loudon[29][30] and Joseph Paxton. A space frame of wrought iron arches, held together by horizontal tubular structures containing long prestressed cables,[30][31] supports glass panes which were originally[28] tinted green with copper oxide to reduce the significant heating effect. The 19m high central nave is surrounded by a walkway at 9m height, allowing visitors a closer look upon the palm tree crowns. In front of the Palm House on the east side are the Queen's Beasts, ten statues of animals bearing shields. They are Portland stone replicas of originals done by James Woodford and were placed here in 1958.[32]

  

Princess of Wales Conservatory

Kew's third major conservatory, the Princess of Wales Conservatory, designed by architect Gordon Wilson, was opened in 1987 by Diana, Princess of Wales in commemoration of her predecessor Augusta's associations with Kew. In 1989 the conservatory received the Europa Nostra award for conservation.[34] The conservatory houses ten computer-controlled micro-climatic zones, with the bulk of the greenhouse volume composed of Dry Tropics and Wet Tropics plants. Significant numbers of orchids, water lilies, cacti, lithops, carnivorous plants and bromeliads are housed in the various zones. The cactus collection also extends outside the conservatory where some hardier species can be found.

 

The conservatory has an area of 4499 square metres. As it is designed to minimise the amount of energy taken to run it, the cooler zones are grouped around the outside and the more tropical zones are in the central area where heat is conserved. The glass roof extends down to the ground, giving the conservatory a distinctive appearance and helping to maximise the use of the sun's energy.

 

During the construction of the conservatory a time capsule was buried. It contains the seeds of basic crops and endangered plant species and key publications on conservation.

 

Rhizotron

 

The Rhizotron

A rhizotron opened at the same time as the "treetop walkway", giving visitors the opportunity to investigate what happens beneath the ground where trees grow. The rhizotron is essentially a single gallery containing a set of large bronze abstract castings which contain LCD screens that carry repeating loops of information about the life of trees.

 

Temperate House

 

Inside the Temperate House

The Temperate House, currently closed for restoration, is a greenhouse that has twice the floor area of the Palm House and is the world's largest surviving Victorian glass structure. When in use it contained plants and trees from all the temperate regions of the world. It was commissioned in 1859 and designed by architect Decimus Burton and ironfounder Richard Turner. Covering 4880 square metres, it rises to a height of 19 metres. Intended to accommodate Kew's expanding collection of hardy and temperate plants, it took 40 years to construct, during which time costs soared. The building was restored during 2014 - 15 by Donald Insall Associates, based on their conservation management plan.

 

There is a viewing gallery in the central section from which visitors were able to look down on that part of the collection.

 

Waterlily House

The Waterlily House is the hottest and most humid of the houses at Kew and contains a large pond with varieties of water lily, surrounded by a display of economically important heat-loving plants. It closes during the winter months.

 

It was built to house the Victoria amazonica, the largest of the Nymphaeaceae family of water lilies. This plant was originally transported to Kew in phials of clean water and arrived in February 1849, after several prior attempts to transport seeds and roots had failed. Although various other members of the Nymphaeaceae family grew well, the house did not suit the Victoria, purportedly because of a poor ventilation system, and this specimen was moved to another, smaller, house.

 

The ironwork for this project was provided by Richard Turner and the initial construction was completed in 1852. The heat for the house was initially obtained by running a flue from the nearby Palm House but it was later equipped with its own boiler.

 

Ornamental buildings

 

The Pagoda

In the south-east corner of Kew Gardens stands the Great Pagoda (by Sir William Chambers), erected in 1762, from a design in imitation of the Chinese Ta. The lowest of the ten octagonal storeys is 15 m (49 ft) in diameter. From the base to the highest point is 50 m (164 ft).

 

Each storey finishes with a projecting roof, after the Chinese manner, originally covered with ceramic tiles and adorned with large dragons; a story is still propagated that they were made of gold and were reputedly sold by George IV to settle his debts. In fact the dragons were made of wood painted gold, and simply rotted away with the ravages of time. The walls of the building are composed of brick. The staircase, 253 steps, is in the centre of the building. The Pagoda was closed to the public for many years, but was reopened for the summer months of 2006 and is now open permanently. During the Second World War holes were cut in each floor to allow for drop-testing of model bombs.

  

The Japanese Gateway (Chokushi-Mon)

Built for the Japan-British Exhibition (1910) and moved to Kew in 1911, the Chokushi-Mon ("Imperial Envoy's Gateway") is a four-fifths scale replica of the karamon (gateway) of the Nishi Hongan-ji temple in Kyoto. It lies about 140 m west of the Pagoda and is surrounded by a reconstruction of a traditional Japanese garden.

  

The Minka House

Following the Japan 2001 festival, Kew acquired a Japanese wooden house called a minka. It was originally erected in around 1900 in a suburb of Okazaki. Japanese craftsmen reassembled the framework and British builders who had worked on the Globe Theatre added the mud wall panels.

 

Work on the house started on 7 May 2001 and, when the framework was completed on 21 May, a Japanese ceremony was held to mark what was considered an auspicious occasion. Work on the building of the house was completed in November 2001 but the internal artefacts were not all in place until 2006.

 

The Minka house is located within the bamboo collection in the west central part of the gardens.

  

Queen Charlotte's Cottage

Within the conservation area is a cottage that was given to Queen Charlotte as a wedding present on her marriage to George III. It has been restored by Historic Royal Palaces and is separately administered by them.

It is open to the public on weekends and bank holidays during the summer.

 

Kew Palace

Kew Palace is the smallest of the British royal palaces. It was built by Samuel Fortrey, a Dutch merchant in around 1631. It was later purchased by George III. The construction method is known as Flemish bond and involves laying the bricks with long and short sides alternating. This and the gabled front give the construction a Dutch appearance.

To the rear of the building is the "Queen's Garden" which includes a collection of plants believed to have medicinal qualities. Only plants that were extant in England by the 17th century are grown in the garden.

The building underwent significant restoration, with leading conservation architects Donald Insall Associates, before being reopened to the public in 2006.

It is administered separately from Kew Gardens, by Historic Royal Palaces.

In front of the palace is a sundial, which was given to Kew Gardens in 1959 to commemorate a royal visit. It was sculpted by Martin Holden and is based on an earlier sculpture by Thomas Tompion, a celebrated 17th century clockmaker.

 

Galleries and Museums

 

The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanic Art

The Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanic Art opened in April 2008, and holds paintings from Kew's and Dr Shirley Sherwood's collections, many of which had never been displayed to the public before. It features paintings by artists such as Georg D. Ehret, the Bauer brothers, Pierre-Joseph Redouté and Walter Hood Fitch. The paintings and drawings are cycled on a six-monthly basis. The gallery is linked to the Marianne North Gallery (see above).

 

Near the Palm House is a building known as "Museum No. 1" (even though it is the only museum on the site), which was designed by Decimus Burton and opened in 1857. Housing Kew's economic botany collections including tools, ornaments, clothing, food and medicines, its aim was to illustrate human dependence on plants. The building was refurbished in 1998. The upper two floors are now an education centre and the ground floor houses the "Plants+People" exhibition which highlights the variety of plants and the ways that people use them.

 

Admission to the galleries and museum is free after paying admission to the gardens. The International Garden Photographer of the Year Exhibition is an annual event with an indoor display of entries during the summer months.

 

The Marianne North Gallery of Botanic Art

The Marianne North Gallery was built in the 1880s to house the paintings of Marianne North, an MP's daughter who travelled alone to North and South America, South Africa and many parts of Asia, at a time when women rarely did so, to paint plants. The gallery has 832 of her paintings. The paintings were left to Kew by the artist and a condition of the bequest is that the layout of the paintings in the gallery may not be altered.

 

The gallery had suffered considerable structural degradation since its creation and during a period from 2008 to 2009 major restoration and refurbishment took place, with works lead by with leading conservation architects Donald Insall Associates. During the time the gallery was closed the opportunity was also taken to restore the paintings to their original condition. The gallery reopened in October 2009.

 

The gallery originally opened in 1882 and is the only permanent exhibition in Great Britain dedicated to the work of one woman.

 

Plant collections

 

The plant collections include the Aquatic Garden, which is near the Jodrell laboratory. The Aquatic Garden, which celebrated its centenary in 2009, provides conditions for aquatic and marginal plants. The large central pool holds a selection of summer-flowering water lilies and the corner pools contain plants such as reed mace, bulrushes, phragmites and smaller floating aquatic species.

 

The Arboretum, which covers over half of the total area of the site, contains over 14,000 trees of many thousands of varieties. The Bonsai Collection is housed in a dedicated greenhouse near the Jodrell laboratory. The Cacti Collection is housed in and around the Princess of Wales Conservatory. The Carnivorous Plant collection is housed in the Princess of Wales Conservatory. The Grass Garden was created on its current site in the early 1980s to display ornamental and economic grasses; it was redesigned and replanted between 1994 and 1997. It is currently undergoing a further redesign and planting. Over 580 species of grasses are displayed.

 

The Herbaceous Grounds (Order Beds) were devised in the late 1860s by Sir Joseph Hooker, then director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, so that botany students could learn to recognise plants and experience at first hand the diversity of the plant kingdom. The collection is organised into family groups. Its name arose because plant families were known as natural orders in the 19th century. Over the main path is a rose pergola built in 1959 to mark the bicentennial of the Gardens. It supports climber and rambling roses selected for the length and profusion of flowering.

 

The Orchid Collection is housed in two climate zones within the Princess of Wales Conservatory. To maintain an interesting display the plants are changed regularly so that those on view are generally flowering. The Rock Garden, originally built of limestone in 1882, is now constructed of Sussex sandstone from West Hoathly, Sussex. The rock garden is divided into six geographic regions: Europe, Mediterranean and Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Asia, North America, and South America. There are currently 2,480 different "accessions" growing in the garden.

 

The Rose Garden, based upon original designs by William Nesfield, is behind the Palm House, and was replanted between 2009 and 2010 using the original design from 1848. It is intended as an ornamental display rather than a collection of a particularly large number of varieties. Other collections and specialist areas include the rhododendron dell, the azalea garden, the bamboo garden, the juniper collection, the berberis dell, the lilac garden, the magnolia collection, and the fern collection.

  

The Palm House and lake to Victoria Gate

The world's smallest water-lily, Nymphaea thermarum, was saved from extinction when it was grown from seed at Kew, in 2009.

 

Herbarium

The Kew herbarium is one of the largest in the world with approximately 7 million specimens used primarily for taxonomic study. The herbarium is rich in types for all regions of the world, especially the tropics.

 

Library and archives

The library and archives at Kew are one of the world's largest botanical collections, with over half a million items, including books, botanical illustrations, photographs, letters and manuscripts, periodicals, and maps. The Jodrell Library has been merged with the Economic Botany and Mycology Libraries and all are now housed in the Jodrell Laboratory.

 

Forensic horticulture

Kew provides advice and guidance to police forces around the world where plant material may provide important clues or evidence in cases. In one famous case the forensic science department at Kew were able to ascertain that the contents of the stomach of a headless corpse found in the river Thames contained a highly toxic African bean.

 

Economic Botany

 

The Sustainable Uses of Plants group (formerly the Centre for Economic Botany), focus on the uses of plants in the United Kingdom and the world's arid and semi-arid zones. The Centre is also responsible for curation of the Economic Botany Collection, which contains more than 90,000 botanical raw materials and ethnographic artefacts, some of which are on display in the Plants + People exhibit in Museum No. 1. The Centre is now located in the Jodrell Laboratory.

 

Jodrell Laboratory

The original Jodrell laboratory, named after Mr T. J. Phillips Jodrell who funded it, was established in 1877 and consisted of four research rooms and an office. Originally research was conducted into plant physiology but this was gradually superseded by botanical research. In 1934 an artists' studio and photographic darkroom were added, highlighting the importance of botanical illustration. In 1965, following increasing overcrowding, a new building was constructed and research expanded into seed collection for plant conservation. The biochemistry section also expanded to facilitate research into secondary compounds that could be derived from plants for medicinal purposes. In 1994 the centre was expanded again, tripling in size, and a decade later it was further expanded by the addition of the Wolfson Wing.

 

Kew Constabulary

Main article: Kew Constabulary

The gardens have their own police force, Kew Constabulary, which has been in operation since 1847. Formerly known as the Royal Botanic Gardens Constabulary, it is a small, specialised constabulary of two sergeants and 12 officers, who patrol the grounds in a green painted electric buggy. The Kew Constables are attested under section 3 of the Parks Regulation Act 1872, which gives them the same powers as the Metropolitan Police within the land belonging to the gardens.

 

Media

A number of films, documentaries and short videos have been made about Kew Gardens.

 

They include:

 

a short colour film World Garden by cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth in 1942

three series of A Year at Kew (2007), filmed for BBC television and released on DVD

Cruickshank on Kew: The Garden That Changed the World, a 2009 BBC documentary, presented by Dan Cruickshank, exploring the history of the relationship between Kew Gardens and the British Empire

David Attenborough's 2012 Kingdom of Plants 3D

a 2003 episode of the Channel 4 TV series Time Team, presented by Tony Robinson, that searched for the remains of George III's palace

a 2004 episode of the BBC Four series Art of the Garden which looked at the building of the Great Palm House in the 1840s.

"Kew on a Plate", a TV programme showing the kinds of produce grown at Kew Gardens and how they can be prepared in a kitchen.

In 1921 Virginia Woolf published her short story "Kew Gardens", which gives brief descriptions of four groups of people as they pass by a flowerbed.

 

Access and transport

 

Elizabeth Gate

Kew Gardens is accessible by a number of gates. Currently, there are four gates into Kew Gardens that are open to the public: the Elizabeth Gate, which is situated at the west end of Kew Green, and was originally called the Main Gate before being renamed in 2012 to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II; the Brentford Gate, which faces the River Thames; the Victoria Gate (named after Queen Victoria), situated in Kew Road, which is also the location of the Visitors' Centre; and the Lion Gate, also situated in Kew Road.

 

Other gates that are not open to the public include Unicorn Gate, Cumberland Gate and Jodrell Gate (all in Kew Road) and Isleworth Gate (facing the Thames).

  

Victoria Gate

Kew Gardens station, a London Underground and National Rail station opened in 1869 and served by both the District line and the London Overground services on the North London Line, is the nearest train station to the gardens – only 400 metres (1,300 ft) along Lichfield Road from the Victoria Gate entrance. Built by the London and South Western Railway, the Historic England listed building is one of the few remaining original 19th-century stations on the North London Line, and the only station on the London Underground with a pub on the platform (though the platform entrance is now closed off). Kew Bridge station, on the other side of the Thames, 800 metres from the Elizabeth Gate entrance via Kew Bridge, is served by South West Trains from Clapham Junction and Waterloo.

 

London Buses route 65, between Ealing Broadway and Kingston, stops near the Lion Gate and Victoria Gate entrances; route 391, between Fulham and Richmond, stops near Kew Gardens station; while routes 237 and 267 stop at Kew Bridge station.

 

London River Services operate from Westminster during the summer, stopping at Kew Pier, 500 metres (1,600 ft) from Elizabeth Gate. Cycle racks are located just inside the Victoria Gate, Elizabeth Gate and Brentford Gate entrances. There is a 300-space car park outside Brentford Gate, reached via Ferry Lane, as well as some free, though restricted, on-street parking on Kew Road.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kew_Gardens

 

Turkish Tea, part of a Christmas present. It says "Bergamot Flavour" - like Early Grey - not sure about that.

Looking back at the 2021 Goodwood Festival of speed. Rally cars on the hillclimb course.

Includes necklace and choker necklace

 

Original release at Mesh Body Addicts Fair, August 1st 2018

 

100% original mesh

Photo taken in Second Life

This includes some of the birds we saw in Denali this week. While many of the migrants have left there are still plenty to see.

 

This is a female spruce grouse. They spend the entire winter here in spite of the frigid temperatures to come.

Includes the superb new Forgeworld command squad and apothecary models.

Includes 4 rezzables each seating 2 and also singing bowls and Japanese flutes to wear and play. 3 different songs for the flute and 3 for the singing bowls. Out now for the Saturday Sale at Kei Spot. maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Loon/119/204/105

A pleasant trip to Shoreham Beach this evening, where the vegetation is in full bloom. Also, a nice interaction with a group of kids, a couple of which seemed interested in knowing what the various flowers were. Each bit of information was relayed back to the main group at high volume. The discovery of a hairy Caterpillar was greeted with particular glee.

This Robin at Woods Mill seems to think it's a water bird - as it hopped between the lily pads in search of bugs

Magical light for a time at Woods Mill this evening. Shortly after, it rained, but no matter.

 

I also took a stroll along the path by the Mill stream and was treated to some wonderful birdsong - Nightingale mixed in with Blackbird and Thrush

 

www.dropbox.com/s/ht9wchuvp3oa40a/Audio%20recording%20201...

 

www.dropbox.com/s/4x6nfd4wjuarlz4/Audio%20recording%20201...

   

A Pellucid Fly - a type of Hoverfly - on Bindweed at Woods Mill

Decorah, IA (Winneshiek County)

 

Vesterheim Heritage Park on Vesterheim’s campus includes 12 historic buildings in an open-air setting. The buildings depict the story of immigration, showcasing life in Norway in the 1800s and then life for immigrants in America. The park is a forested area, interspersed with glade-like openings that act as outdoor rooms.

 

Valdres House

Øystre Slidre, Valdres, Norway (1795)

A modest landowner’s home (1795) built with traditional labor-intensive log construction methods. Five of six children raised in this house left for frontiers in the United States and Canada at the height of emigration in the late 1800s. The house was moved from Norway to Vesterheim in 1975. (1)

 

References (1) Vesterheim vesterheim.org/exhibit/egge-koren-house/

Soldiers on the Urban Operation course conduct tactical breaching to include the use of ballistic breaching with Remington 12-gauge shotguns, transition drills between rifle and pistol as well as modified firing positions, at the Infantry School Combat Training Center, 5th Canadian Division Support Base (5 CDSB) Gagetown, New Brunswick, on 8 April 2022.

 

Please credit: Cpl Dave Michaud, Infantry School CTC, Canadian Armed Forces photo

~

Des soldats participant au cours d’opérations urbaines effectuent des ouvertures de brèches tactiques, notamment en utilisant la technique d’ouverture de brèche balistique au moyen de fusils de chasse Remington de calibre 12, en exécutant des exercices de transition entre le fusil et le pistolet, ainsi qu’en adoptant des positions de tir modifiées, à l’École d’infanterie du Centre d’instruction au combat, situé à la Base de soutien de la 5e Division du Canada (BS 5 Div CA) Gagetown, au Nouveau-Brunswick, le 8 avril 2022.

 

Photo : Cpl Dave Michaud, École d’infanterie, CIC, Forces armées canadiennes

Hong Kong Government Department

 

The Hong Kong Police Force | HKP

 

Police Vehicles, Police Officers, Marine Police, Traffic Police, Police Stations. All Districts, Hong Kong

 

Special Units & Divisions include Counter Terrorism, Police Tactical Unit (PTU), National Security Bureau, Diplomatic Protection & Security, Commercial Crime, CID, Dog Unit, Wanted & Missing Persons, Cyber Security & Technology Crime Bureau, Organised Crime and Triad Bureau, Narcotics Bureau, Criminal Intelligence, The Bomb Squad (EOD), Public Relations, Criminal Records, Police Training College and the Auxiliary Police etc.

 

All relevant and extensive information about the Hong Kong Police Force is available on their website

 

www.police.gov.hk/ppp_en/

 

It is very comprehensive, the Hong Kong Police Force has a highly organised structure.

 

All Hong Kong Police Vehicles use the AM licence plate ie 2 digits and up to 4 numbers | Police vehicles have different colours, normal Police vehicles are white with red and blue stripes, the Police Traffic Division vehicles are white with yellow and blue checkerboard design.

 

Amazingly the Police Force have their own superstitions as well, the majority of the licence plates on Police Vehicles have lucky number combinations involving the numbers 6,8, and 9 ! Basically 6 means easy life, 8 means wealth and 9 means long life - this is very much Hong Kong Culture. The Police also use unmarked vehicles extensively which are NOT identified by the AM mark.

 

The Police Museum at 27 Coombe Road at the Peak is also worth a visit, see details on the website listed above.

 

☛.... and if you want to read about my views on Hong Kong, then go to my blog, link below

 

www.j3consultantshongkong.com/j3c-blog

 

☛ Photography is simply a hobby for me, I do NOT sell my images and all of my images can be FREELY downloaded from this site in the original upload image size or 5 other sizes, please note that you DO NOT have to ask for permission to download and use any of my images!

Such a short wheelbase on the original TVR Griffith

An assault platoon of the 1st Guard Reserve Regiment. It includes tow Mg/0815 light machine guns and a flamethrower accompanying squad of the Guard Reserve Pioneer Regiment.

 

The flamethrower is the Wex M.1917, here operated by a three-man squad.

 

Since none of the men wear cartridge cases or gas-mask canisters, this photo was likely taken prior to a trench raid. Gas masks were too fragile to simply hang around the neck for no reason. Plenty of P08 and Austrian Steyr M1912 pistols are in evidence, as are rifles with fixed bayonets.

 

The lack of hand grenades could be explained by a strong desire to capture prisoners or by extremely cramped fighting quarters.

The Wigwam Motels, also known as the "Wigwam Villages," is a motel chain in the United States built during the 1930s and 1940s. The rooms are built in the form of tipis, mistakenly referred to as wigwams. It originally had seven different locations: two locations in Kentucky and one each in Alabama, Florida, Arizona, Louisiana, and California.

 

They are very distinctive historic landmarks. Two of the three surviving motels are located on historic U.S. Route 66: in Holbrook, Arizona, and in San Bernardino, California. All three of the surviving motels are listed on the National Register of Historic Places: the Wigwam Motel in Cave City, Kentucky, was listed in 1988 under the official designation of Wigwam Village #2; the Wigwam Motel in Arizona was listed as Wigwam Village #6 in 2002; and the Wigwam Motel in California was listed in 2012 as Wigwam Village #7.

 

Frank A. Redford developed the Village after adding tipi-shaped motel units around a museum-shop he had built to house his collection of Native American artifacts. He applied for a patent on the ornamental design of the buildings on December 17, 1935, and was granted Design Patent 98,617 on February 18, 1936. The original drawing includes the swastika, at the time a symbol associated with Native Americans or often worn as a good-luck charm.

 

Seven Wigwam Villages were built between 1933 and 1949.

 

Wigwam villages

Wigwam Village#1 in Horse Cave, Kentucky (1979)

The first Wigwam Village was built in 1933 by Frank A. Redford. It was located on the corner of US-31E and Hwy 218 in Horse Cave, Kentucky.

 

The central building and gas pumps are visible on undated postcards. Six more wigwams were built to be used as guest rooms.

 

Village #1 closed in 1935 when the nearby Wigwam Village #2 was opened, but operated under different names until it was eventually abandoned; it was razed in 1982.

 

Village #2: Cave City, Kentucky

Wigwam Village #2 was built in 1937 on U.S. Route 31W[6] in Cave City, Kentucky, close to Mammoth Cave National Park and a few miles south of the original Wigwam Village #1. The address is 601 North Dixie Hwy, Cave City, Kentucky. ( 37°08'43.0"N, 85°56'43.8"W )

 

It consists of 15 wigwams used as guest rooms that are arranged in a semicircle. In the center is a much bigger concrete and steel central structure that originally served as a restaurant, plus a common area with playground, recreation space, and pavilion. Each wigwam has a paved pad to accommodate one car. The restaurant is no longer in operation, but the motel is still open.

 

The diameter at the base of each tipi is 14 feet (4.3 m), and they are 32 feet (9.8 m) in height. Behind the main room of each unit is a small bathroom with sink, toilet, and shower. In 2008, the rooms contain the original restored hickory furniture and a window-mounted air conditioner. There are no telephones to maintain the original atmosphere of the motel, but the rooms do have cable TV and internet access.

 

Wigwam Village #2 is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It achieved this status on March 16, 1988.

 

Village #3: New Orleans, Louisiana

This wigwam village was built in 1940, on U.S. Route 61 in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans, Louisiana. It included a restaurant, cocktail bar, souvenir shop, and Esso service station. Village #3 went out of business in 1954, leaving little documentation behind.

 

Village #4: Orlando, Florida

Wigwam Village #4 was built in 1948, and was located at 700 S. Orange Blossom Trail. The builder, Jerry Kinsley, later served as mayor of Edgewood, Florida.

 

This relatively large wigwam village consisted of 27 guest rooms, each in a separate wigwam constructed to resemble a horseshoe shape, with four additional wigwams, likely housing offices and a restaurant. A pool was located in the middle of the lot. Village #4 claimed to be "Orlando's largest and finest Motel."

 

Village #4 was razed in 1974, and replaced with a Days Inn. The only part of the original design that survived was the swimming pool. An attempt to save some of the tipis by using a helicopter to airlift them to a YMCA Summer Camp failed, as they were too heavy to move. A 330-room Vacation Lodge now sits on the site.

 

Village #5: Bessemer, Alabama

The Wigwam Village #5 was built in 1940 in Bessemer, Alabama. It was located 4 miles (6.4 km) north of downtown Bessemer, on U.S. Route 11, and included 15 guest cabins, arranged in a semicircle around the restaurant, restrooms, and offices. Rather than the steel, lath, and plaster of Redford's original design, the Village #5 structures were made of steel, wood, and felt, then covered in canvas and treated with linseed oil.

 

Village #5 went out of business in 1964, and was demolished after falling into ruin, although the restaurant reportedly stood until 1970.

 

Village #6: Holbrook, Arizona

Arizona motel owner Chester E. Lewis built this Wigwam Village in 1950. It is located on the historic Route 66, at 811 West Hopi Drive in Holbrook, Arizona. Nearby places of interest include Petrified Forest National Park, Meteor Crater (Barringer Crater), and the Grand Canyon.

 

The plans for this motel were based on the original of Frank A. Redford. Lewis first became aware of the distinctive wigwam designs when passing through Cave City in 1938. He purchased the rights to Redford's design, as well as the right to use the name "Wigwam Village," in a novel royalty agreement: coin-operated radios would be installed in Lewis's Wigwam Village, and every dime inserted for 30 minutes of play would be sent to Redford as payment.

 

The motel is arranged as a square, with 15 concrete and steel wigwams on three sides and the main office on the fourth, flanked by two smaller sized wigwams; there was also originally a gas station on the complex. The individual units are called "wigwams," not "rooms" or "tepees" or "cabins." The units are numbered from 1 to 16, (there is no 13). The base diameter is 14 feet (4.3 m), with each unit 32 feet (9.8 m) in height. Behind the main room of each unit is a small bathroom with sink, toilet and shower. Current rooms contain the original restored hickory furniture, two double beds, satellite TV and a window-mounted air conditioner. In keeping with the authenticity of the restoration, there are no telephones or ice machine. Vintage restored automobiles from the 1960s and earlier are located throughout the parking area. Small green metal benches etched with the words "Wigwam Village #6" are scattered throughout the complex as well.

 

Lewis operated the motel until closing it in 1974 when Interstate 40 bypassed downtown Holbrook. Two years after his death in 1986, sons Clifton and Paul Lewis and daughter Elinor renovated the motel before reopening it in 1988.

 

The Lewis family continues to run and maintain Wigwam Village #6. Near the registration desk is a small room that contains much of Chester Lewis's memorabilia, including a collection of petrified wood.

 

Wigwam Village #6 has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places since May 2, 2002.

 

Village #7: Rialto/San Bernardino, California

Frank Redford built this complex for himself in 1947–49 and not as a franchise. The address of the motel is Rialto, California, but the motel is physically located in San Bernardino. It is on the boundary between the two cities on historic Route 66, with an address of 2728 East Foothill Boulevard, Rialto, California.

 

Unlike the one arch of wigwams in other surviving villages, Village #7 has a double row of wigwam guest rooms. They total 20 in number, as well as a base for what seems to be another never-completed wigwam in the back of the property. A central building is currently used as an office, with a lobby that is open 24 hours a day. There is also a swimming pool, a large grass front and palm trees surround the property.

 

The property had become very run down and rooms were rented by the hour, aggravated by a sign advertising "Do it in a Tee Pee" that is still on site in the back. The complex underwent renovation, for which the National Historic Route 66 Federation awarded the Cyrus Avery Award in 2005. Attention to detail was the main focus during renovation, as the wigwams lost their zigzag pattern.

 

Since 2012, the motel has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

 

The Tee Pee Motel in Wharton, Texas near Houston, which was built in 1942 by George and Toppie Belcher; George Belcher had the idea while on vacation in Wyoming. It is not of the same design nor heritage as the Wigwam Motels; each of the tipis at the Tee Pee Motel are of different shapes, and line up in a straight line. The Belchers sold the motel in 1955, and it had been in disrepair for decades. A man named Dan Ryan bought it in 1995, but subsequent attempts to locate him failed, and the taxes on the property weren't paid. Then, in July 2003, Bryon Woods, a diesel mechanic, won the Texas Lottery. At his wife's urging, Woods bought the property. Modern conveniences were added, and the Tee Pee Motel reopened for business in October 2006. In March 2012 the motel was the site of a large drugs seizure. It closed in 2017, due to flood damage from Hurricane Harvey.

 

Similar motels also stood in San Antonio, Port Neches, and Corsicana, Texas.

 

The motels and their imitators have been parodied many times. Rockstar's 2004 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas game contains a Tee Pee Motel. In the 2006 Pixar film Cars, one of the characters Sally Carrera runs a "newly refurbished" neon-lit motel that is clearly inspired by Wigwam Village #6. The motel is called the Cozy Cone Motel, and each room is fashioned as a traffic cone.

 

In 2012 a digitally altered image of Wigwam Village #6 appeared in an advertisement for Microtel Inn and Suites.

 

Wigwam number 1 of the Holbrook, Arizona, Wigwam Village #6 was featured in the second episode of Oprah and Gayle's Big Adventures on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

 

Wigwam Village #6 is featured in the 1991 movie The Dark Wind, based on the 1982 Tony Hillerman novel of the same name.

 

Wigwam Village #7 is featured in Bobcat Goldthwait's 2011 black comedy film God Bless America. Joan Didion mentions #7 in her essay "Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream" in her book, Slouching Toward Bethlehem.

 

Arizona is a state in the Southwestern region of the United States. Arizona is part of the Four Corners region with Utah to the north, Colorado to the northeast, and New Mexico to the east; its other neighboring states are Nevada to the northwest, California to the west and the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California to the south and southwest. It is the 6th-largest and the 14th-most-populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix.

 

Arizona is the 48th state and last of the contiguous states to be admitted to the Union, achieving statehood on February 14, 1912. Historically part of the territory of Alta California and Nuevo México in New Spain, it became part of independent Mexico in 1821. After being defeated in the Mexican–American War, Mexico ceded much of this territory to the United States in 1848, where the area became part of the territory of New Mexico. The southernmost portion of the state was acquired in 1853 through the Gadsden Purchase.

 

Southern Arizona is known for its desert climate, with very hot summers and mild winters. Northern Arizona features forests of pine, Douglas fir, and spruce trees; the Colorado Plateau; mountain ranges (such as the San Francisco Mountains); as well as large, deep canyons, with much more moderate summer temperatures and significant winter snowfalls. There are ski resorts in the areas of Flagstaff, Sunrise, and Tucson. In addition to the internationally known Grand Canyon National Park, which is one of the world's seven natural wonders, there are several national forests, national parks, and national monuments.

 

Arizona's population and economy have grown dramatically since the 1950s because of inward migration, and the state is now a major hub of the Sun Belt. Cities such as Phoenix and Tucson have developed large, sprawling suburban areas. Many large companies, such as PetSmart and Circle K, have headquarters in the state, and Arizona is home to major universities, including the University of Arizona and Arizona State University. The state is known for a history of conservative politicians such as Barry Goldwater and John McCain, though it has become a swing state since the 1990s.

 

Arizona is home to a diverse population. About one-quarter of the state is made up of Indian reservations that serve as the home of 27 federally recognized Native American tribes, including the Navajo Nation, the largest in the state and the United States, with more than 300,000 citizens. Since the 1980s, the proportion of Hispanics in the state's population has grown significantly owing to migration from Mexico. A substantial portion of the population are followers of the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

 

The history of Arizona encompasses the Paleo-Indian, Archaic, Post-Archaic, Spanish, Mexican, and American periods. About 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, Paleo-Indians settled in what is now Arizona. A few thousand years ago, the Ancestral Puebloan, the Hohokam, the Mogollon and the Sinagua cultures inhabited the state. However, all of these civilizations mysteriously disappeared from the region in the 15th and 16th centuries. Today, countless ancient ruins can be found in Arizona. Arizona was part of the state of Sonora, Mexico from 1822, but the settled population was small. In 1848, under the terms of the Mexican Cession the United States took possession of Arizona above the Gila River after the Mexican War, and became part of the Territory of New Mexico. By means of the Gadsden Purchase, the United States secured the northern part of the state of Sonora, which is now Arizona south of the Gila River in 1854.

 

In 1863, Arizona was split off from the Territory of New Mexico to form the Arizona Territory. The remoteness of the region was eased by the arrival of railroads in 1880. Arizona became a state in 1912 but was primarily rural with an economy based on cattle, cotton, citrus, and copper. Dramatic growth came after 1945, as retirees and young families who appreciated the warm weather and low costs emigrated from the Northeast and Midwest.

 

In the Mexican–American War, the garrison commander avoided conflict with Lieutenant Colonel Cooke and the Mormon Battalion, withdrawing while the Americans marched through the town on their way to California. In the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), Mexico ceded to the U.S. the northern 70% of modern-day Arizona above the Sonora border along the Gila River. During the California Gold Rush, an upwards of 50,000 people traveled through on the Southern Emigrant Trail pioneered by Cooke, to reach the gold fields in 1849. The Pima Villages often sold fresh food and provided relief to distressed travelers among this throng and to others in subsequent years.

 

Paleo-Indians settled what is now Arizona around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. According to most archaeologists, the Paleo-Indians initially followed herds of big game—megafauna such as mammoths, mastodons, and bison—into North America. The traveling groups also collected and utilized a wide variety of smaller game animals, fish, and a wide variety of plants. These people were likely characterized by highly mobile bands of approximately 20 or 50 members of an extended family, moving from place to place as resources were depleted and additional supplies needed. Paleoindian groups were efficient hunters and created and carried a variety of tools, some highly specialized, for hunting, butchering and hide processing. These paleolithic people utilized the environment that they lived in near water sources, including rivers, swamps and marshes, which had an abundance of fish, and drew birds and game animals. Big game, including bison, mammoths and ground sloths, also were attracted to these water sources. At the latest by 9500 BCE, bands of hunters wandered as far south as Arizona, where they found a desert grassland and hunted mule deer, antelope and other small mammals.

 

As populations of larger game began to diminish, possibly as a result of intense hunting and rapid environmental changes, Late Paleoindian groups would come to rely more on other facets of their subsistence pattern, including increased hunting of bison, mule deer and antelope. Nets and the atlatl to hunt water fowl, ducks, small animals and antelope. Hunting was especially important in winter and spring months when plant foods were scarce.

 

The Archaic time frame is defined culturally as a transition from a hunting/gathering lifestyle to one involving agriculture and permanent, if only seasonally occupied, settlements. In the Southwest, the Archaic is generally dated from 8000 years ago to approximately 1800 to 2000 years ago. During this time the people of the southwest developed a variety of subsistence strategies, all using their own specific techniques. The nutritive value of weed and grass seeds was discovered and flat rocks were used to grind flour to produce gruels and breads. This use of grinding slabs in about 7500 BCE marks the beginning of the Archaic tradition. Small bands of people traveled throughout the area, gathering plants such as cactus fruits, mesquite beans, acorns, and pine nuts and annually establishing camps at collection points.

 

Late in the Archaic Period, corn, probably introduced into the region from central Mexico, was planted near camps with permanent water access. Distinct types of corn have been identified in the more well-watered highlands and the desert areas, which may imply local mutation or successive introduction of differing species. Emerging domesticated crops also included beans and squash.

 

About 3,500 years ago, climate change led to changing patterns in water sources, leading to a dramatically decreased population. However, family-based groups took shelter in south facing caves and rock overhangs within canyon walls. Occasionally, these people lived in small semisedentary hamlets in open areas. Evidence of significant occupation has been found in the northern part of Arizona.

 

In the Post-Archaic period, the Ancestral Puebloan, the Hohokam, the Mogollon and Sinagua cultures inhabited what is now Arizona. These cultures built structures made out of stone. Some of the structures that these cultures built are called pueblos. Pueblos are monumental structures that housed dozens to thousands of people. In some Ancestral Puebloan towns and villages, Hohokam towns and villages, Mogollon towns and villages, and Sinagua towns and villages, the pueblo housed the entire town. Surrounding the pueblos were often farms where farmers would plant and harvest crops to feed the community. Sometimes, pueblos and other buildings were built in caves in cliffs.

 

The Ancestral Puebloans were an ancient Pre-Columbian Native American civilization that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado. The Ancestral Puebloans are believed to have developed, at least in part, from the Oshara tradition, who developed from the Picosa culture.

 

They lived in a range of structures that included small family pit houses, larger structures to house clans, grand pueblos, and cliff-sited dwellings for defense. The Ancestral Puebloans possessed a complex network that stretched across the Colorado Plateau linking hundreds of communities and population centers. They held a distinct knowledge of celestial sciences that found form in their architecture. The kiva, a congregational space that was used chiefly for ceremonial purposes, was an integral part of this ancient people's community structure. Some of their most impressive structures were built in what is now Arizona.

 

Hohokam was a Pre-Columbian culture in the North American Southwest in what is now part of Arizona, United States, and Sonora, Mexico. Hohokam practiced a specific culture, sometimes referred to as Hohokam culture, which has been distinguished by archeologists. People who practiced the culture can be called Hohokam as well, but more often, they are distinguished as Hohokam people to avoid confusion.

 

Most archaeologists agree that the Hohokam culture existed between c. 300 and c. 1450 CE, but cultural precursors may have been in the area as early as 300 BC. Whether Hohokam culture was unified politically remains under controversy. Hohokam culture may have just given unrelated neighboring communities common ground to help them to work together to survive their harsh desert environment.

 

The Mogollon culture was an ancient Pre-Columbian culture of Native American peoples from Southern New Mexico and Arizona, Northern Sonora and Chihuahua, and Western Texas. The northern part of this region is Oasisamerica, while the southern span of the Mogollon culture is known as Aridoamerica.

 

The Mogollon culture was one of the major prehistoric Southwestern cultural divisions of the Southwestern United States and Northern Mexico. The culture flourished from c. 200 CE, to c. 1450 CE or 1540 CE, when the Spanish arrived.

 

The Sinagua culture was a Pre-Columbian culture that occupied a large area in central Arizona from the Little Colorado River, near Flagstaff, to the Verde River, near Sedona, including the Verde Valley, area around San Francisco Mountain, and significant portions of the Mogollon Rim country, between approximately 500 CE and 1425 CE. Besides ceremonial kivas, their pueblos had large "community rooms" and some featured ballcourts and walled courtyards, similar to those of the Hohokam culture. Since fully developed Sinagua sites emerged in central Arizona around 500 CE, it is believed they migrated from east-central Arizona, possibly emerging from the Mogollon culture.

 

The history of Arizona as recorded by Europeans began in 1539 with the first documented exploration of the area by Marcos de Niza, early work expanded the following year when Francisco Vásquez de Coronado entered the area as well.

 

The Spanish established a few missions in southern Arizona in the 1680s by Father Eusebio Francisco Kino along the Santa Cruz River, in what was then the Pimería Alta region of Sonora. The Spanish also established presidios in Tubac and Tucson in 1752 and 1775. The area north of the Gila River was governed by the Province of Las California under the Spanish until 1804, when the Californian portion of Arizona became part of Alta California under the Spanish and Mexican governments.

 

In 1849, the California Gold Rush led as many as 50,000 miners to travel across the region, leading to a boom in Arizona's population. In 1850, Arizona and New Mexico formed the New Mexico Territory.

 

In 1853, President Franklin Pierce sent James Gadsden to Mexico City to negotiate with Santa Anna, and the United States bought the remaining southern strip area of Arizona and New Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase. A treaty was signed in Mexico in December 1853, and then, with modifications, approved by the US Senate in June 1854, setting the southern boundary of Arizona and of New Mexico.

 

Before 1846 the Apache raiders expelled most Mexican ranchers. One result was that large herds of wild cattle roamed southeastern Arizona. By 1850, the herds were gone, killed by Apaches, American sportsmen, contract hunting for the towns of Fronteras and Santa Cruz, and roundups to sell to hungry Mexican War soldiers, and forty-niners en route to California.

 

During the Civil War, on March 16, 1861, citizens in southern New Mexico Territory around Mesilla (now in New Mexico) and Tucson invited take-over by the Confederacy. They especially wanted restoration of mail service. These secessionists hoped that a Confederate Territory of Arizona (CSA) would take control, but in March 1862, Union troops from California captured the Confederate Territory of Arizona and returned it to the New Mexico Territory.

 

The Battle of Picacho Pass, April 15, 1862, was a battle of the Civil War fought in the CSA and one of many battles to occur in Arizona during the war among three sides—Apaches, Confederates and Union forces. In 1863, the U.S. split up New Mexico along a north–south line to create the Arizona Territory. The first government officials to arrive established the territory capital in Prescott in 1864. The capital was later moved to Tucson, back to Prescott, and then to its final location in Phoenix in a series of controversial moves as different regions of the territory gained and lost political influence with the growth and development of the territory.

 

In the late 19th century the Army built a series of forts to encourage the Natives to stay in their territory and to act as a buffer from the settlers. The first was Fort Defiance. It was established on September 18, 1851, by Col. Edwin V. Sumner to create a military presence in Diné bikéyah (Navajo territory). Sumner broke up the fort at Santa Fe for this purpose, creating the first military post in what is now Arizona. He left Major Electus Backus in charge. Small skirmishes were common between raiding Navajo and counter raiding citizens. In April 1860 one thousand Navajo warriors under Manuelito attacked the fort and were beaten off.

 

The fort was abandoned at the start of the Civil War but was reoccupied in 1863 by Colonel Kit Carson and the 1st New Mexico Infantry. Carson was tasked by Brigadier-General James H. Carleton, Commander of the Federal District of New Mexico, to kill Navajo men, destroy crops, wells, houses and livestock. These tactics forced 9000 Navajos to take the Long Walk to a reservation at Bosque Redondo, New Mexico. The Bosque was a complete failure. In 1868 the Navajo signed another treaty and were allowed to go back to part of their former territory. The returning Navajo were restocked with sheep and other livestock. Fort Defiance was the agency for the new Navajo reservation until 1936; today it provides medical services to the region.

 

Fort Apache was built on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation by soldiers from the 1st Cavalry and 21st Infantry in 1870. Only one small battle took place, in September 1881, with three soldiers wounded. When the reservation Indians were granted U.S. citizenship in 1924, the fort was permanently closed down. Fort Huachuca, east of Tucson, was founded in 1877 as the base for operations against Apaches and raiders from Mexico. From 1913 to 1933 the fort was the base for the "Buffalo Soldiers" of the 10th Cavalry Regiment. During World War II, the fort expanded to 25,000 soldiers, mostly in segregated all-black units. Today the fort remains in operation and houses the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and the U.S. Army Network.

 

The Pueblos in Arizona were relatively peaceful through the Navajo and Apache Wars. However, in June 1891, the army had to bring in troops to stop Oraibi from preventing a school from being built on their mesa.

 

After the Civil War, Texans brought large-scale ranching to southern Arizona. They introduced their proven range methods to the new grass country. Texas rustlers also came, and brought lawlessness. Inexperienced ranchers brought poor management, resulting in overstocking, and introduced destructive diseases. Local cattleman organizations were formed to handle these problems. The Territory experienced a cattle boom in 1873–91, as the herds were expanded from 40,000 to 1.5 million head. However, the drought of 1891–93 killed off over half the cattle and produced severe overgrazing. Efforts to restore the rangeland between 1905 and 1934 had limited success, but ranching continued on a smaller scale.

 

Arizona's last major drought occurred during Dust Bowl years of 1933–34. This time Washington stepped in as the Agricultural Adjustment Administration spent $100 million to buy up the starving cattle. The Taylor Grazing Act placed federal and state agencies in control of livestock numbers on public lands. Most of the land in Arizona is owned by the federal government which leased grazing land to ranchers at low cost. Ranchers invested heavily in blooded stock and equipment. James Wilson states that after 1950, higher fees and restrictions in the name of land conservation caused a sizable reduction in available grazing land. The ranchers had installed three-fifths of the fences, dikes, diversion dams, cattleguards, and other improvements, but the new rules reduced the value of that investment. In the end, Wilson believes, sportsmen and environmentalists maintained a political advantage by denouncing the ranchers as political corrupted land-grabbers who exploited the publicly owned natural resources.

 

On February 23, 1883, United Verde Copper Company was incorporated under New York law. The small mining camp next to the mine was given a proper name, 'Jerome.' The town was named after the family which had invested a large amount of capital. In 1885 Lewis Williams opened a copper smelter in Bisbee and the copper boom began, as the nation turned to copper wires for electricity. The arrival of railroads in the 1880s made mining even more profitable, and national corporations bought control of the mines and invested in new equipment. Mining operations flourished in numerous boom towns, such as Bisbee, Jerome, Douglas, Ajo and Miami.

 

Arizona's "wild west" reputation was well deserved. Tombstone was a notorious mining town that flourished longer than most, from 1877 to 1929. Silver was discovered in 1877, and by 1881 the town had a population of over 10,000. Western story tellers and Hollywood film makers made as much money in Tombstone as anyone, thanks to the arrival of Wyatt Earp and his brothers in 1879. They bought shares in the Vizina mine, water rights, and gambling concessions, but Virgil, Morgan and Wyatt were soon appointed as federal and local marshals. They killed three outlaws in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, the most famous gunfight of the Old West.

 

In the aftermath, Virgil Earp was maimed in an ambush and Morgan Earp was assassinated while playing billiards. Walter Noble Burns's novel Tombstone (1927) made Earp famous. Hollywood celebrated Earp's Tombstone days with John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946), John Sturges's Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) and Hour of the Gun (1967), Frank Perry's Doc (1971), George Cosmatos's Tombstone (1993), and Lawrence Kasdan's Wyatt Earp (1994). They solidified Earp's modern reputation as the Old West's deadliest gunman.

 

Jennie Bauters (1862–1905) operated brothels in the Territory from 1896 to 1905. She was an astute businesswoman with an eye for real estate appreciation, and a way with the town fathers of Jerome regarding taxes and restrictive ordinances. She was not always sitting pretty; her brothels were burned in a series of major fires that swept the business district; her girls were often drug addicts. As respectability closed in on her, in 1903 she relocated to the mining camp of Acme. In 1905, she was murdered by a man who had posed as her husband.

 

By 1869 Americans were reading John Wesley Powell's reports of his explorations of the Colorado River. In 1901, the Santa Fe Railroad reached Grand Canyon's South Rim. With railroad, restaurant and hotel entrepreneur Fred Harvey leading the way, large-scale tourism began that has never abated. The Grand Canyon has become an iconic symbol of the West and the nation as a whole.

 

The Chinese came to Arizona with the construction of the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1880. Tucson was the main railroad center and soon had a Chinatown with laundries for the general population and a rich mix of restaurants, groceries, and services for the residents. Chinese and Mexican merchants and farmers transcended racial differences to form 'guanxi,' which were relations of friendship and trust. Chinese leased land from Mexicans, operated grocery stores, and aided compatriots attempting to enter the United States from Mexico after the Mexican Revolution in 1910. Chinese merchants helped supply General John Pershing's army in its expedition against Pancho Villa. Successful Chinese in Tucson led a viable community based on social integration, friendship, and kinship.

 

In February 1903, U.S. Senator Hamilton Kean spoke against Arizona's statehood. He said Mormons who fled from Idaho to Mexico would return to the U.S. and mix in the politics of Arizona.

 

In 1912, Arizona almost entered the Union as part of New Mexico in a Republican plan to keep control of the U.S. Senate. The plan, while accepted by most in New Mexico, was rejected by most Arizonans. Progressives in Arizona favored inclusion in the state constitution of the initiative, referendum, recall, direct election of senators, woman suffrage, and other reforms. Most of these proposals were included in the constitution that was rejected by Congress.

 

A new constitution was offered with the problematic provisions removed. Congress then voted to approve statehood, and President Taft signed the statehood bill on February 14, 1912. State residents promptly put the provisions back in. Hispanics had little voice or power. Only one of the 53 delegates at the constitutional convention was Hispanic, and he refused to sign. In 1912 women gained suffrage in the state, eight years before the country as a whole.

 

Arizona's first Congressman was Carl Hayden (1877–1972). He was the son of a Yankee merchant who had moved to Tempe because he needed dry heat for his bad lungs. Carl attended Stanford University and moved up the political ladder as town councilman, county treasurer, and Maricopa County sheriff, where he nabbed Arizona's last train robbers. He also started building a coalition to develop the state's water resources, a lifelong interest. A liberal Democrat his entire career, Hayden was elected to Congress in 1912 and moved to the Senate in 1926.

 

Reelection followed every six years as he advanced toward the chairmanship of the powerful Appropriations Committee, which he reached in 1955. His only difficult campaign came in 1962, at age 85, when he defeated a young conservative. He retired in 1968 after a record 56 years in Congress. His great achievement was his 41-year battle to enact the Central Arizona Project that would provide water for future growth.

 

The Great Depression of 1929–39 hit Arizona hard. At first local, state and private relief efforts focused on charity, especially by the Community Chest and Organized Charities programs. Federal money started arriving with the Federal Emergency Relief Committee in 1930. Different agencies promoted aid to the unemployed, tuberculosis patients, transients, and illegal immigrants. The money ran out by 1931 or 1932, and conditions were bad until New Deal relief operations began on a large scale in 1933.

 

Construction programs were important, especially the Hoover Dam (originally called Boulder Dam), begun by President Herbert Hoover. It is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border with Nevada. It was constructed by the Federal Bureau of Reclamation between 1931 and 1936. It operationalized a schedule of water use set by the Colorado River Compact of 1922 that gave Arizona 19% of the river's water, with 25% to Nevada and the rest to California.

 

Construction of military bases in Arizona was a national priority because of the state's excellent flying weather and clear skies, large amounts of unoccupied land, good railroads, cheap labor, low taxes, and its proximity to California's aviation industry. Arizona was attractive to both the military and private firms and they stayed after the war.

 

Fort Huachuca became one of the largest nearly-all-black Army forts, with quarters for 1,300 officers and 24,000 enlisted soldiers. The 92nd and 93rd Infantry Divisions, composed of African-American troops, trained there.

 

During the war, Mexican-American community organizations were very active in patriotic efforts to support American troops abroad, and made efforts to support the war effort materially and to provide moral support for the American servicemen fighting the war, especially the Mexican-American servicemen from local communities. Some of the community projects were cooperative ventures in which members of both the Mexican-American and Anglo communities participated. Most efforts made in the Mexican-American community represented localized American home front activities that were separate from the activities of the Anglo community.

 

Mexican-American women organized to assist their servicemen and the war effort. An underlying goal of the Spanish-American Mothers and Wives Association was the reinforcement of the woman's role in Spanish-Mexican culture. The organization raised thousands of dollars, wrote letters, and joined in numerous celebrations of their culture and their support for Mexican-American servicemen. Membership reached over 300 during the war and eventually ended its existence in 1976.

 

Heavy government spending during World War II revitalized the Arizona economy, which was still based on copper mining, citrus and cotton crops and cattle ranching, with a growing tourist business.

 

Military installations peppered the state, such as Davis-Monthan Field in Tucson, the main training center for air force bomber pilots. Two relocation camps opened for Japanese and Japanese Americans brought in from the West Coast.

 

After World War II the population grew rapidly, increasing sevenfold between 1950 and 2000, from 700,000 to over 5 million. Most of the growth was in the Phoenix area, with Tucson a distant second. Urban growth doomed the state's citrus industry, as the groves were turned into housing developments.

 

The cost of water made growing cotton less profitable, and Arizona's production steadily declined. Manufacturing employment jumped from 49,000 in 1960 to 183,000 by 1985, with half the workers in well-paid positions. High-tech firms such as Motorola, Hughes Aircraft, Goodyear Aircraft, Honeywell, and IBM had offices in the Phoenix area. By 1959, Hughes Aircraft had built advanced missiles with 5,000 workers in Tucson.

 

Despite being a small state, Arizona produced several national leaders for both the Republican and Democratic parties. Two Republican Senators were presidential nominees: Barry Goldwater in 1964 and John McCain in 2008; both carried Arizona but lost the national election. Senator Ernest McFarland, a Democrat, was the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate from 1951 to 1952, and Congressman John Rhodes was the Republican Minority Leader in the House from 1973 to 1981. Democrats Bruce Babbitt (Governor 1978–87) and Morris Udall (Congressman 1961–90) were contenders for their party's presidential nominations. In 1981 Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court; she served until 2006.

 

Retirement communities

Warm winters and low cost of living attracted retirees from the so-called snowbelt, who moved permanently to Arizona after 1945, bringing their pensions, Social Security, and savings with them. Real estate entrepreneurs catered to them with new communities with amenities pitched to older people, and with few facilities for children. Typically they were gated communities with controlled access and had pools, recreation centers, and golf courses.

 

In 1954, two developers bought 320 acres (1.3 km2) of farmland near Phoenix and opened the nation's first planned community dedicated exclusively to retirees at Youngtown. In 1960, developer Del Webb, inspired by the amenities in Florida's trailer parks, added facilities for "active adults" in his new Sun City planned community near Phoenix. In 1962 Ross Cortese opened the first of his gated Leisure Worlds. Other developers copied the popular model, and by 2000 18% of the retirees in the state lived in such "lifestyle" communities.

 

The issues of the fragile natural environment, compounded by questions of water shortage and distribution, led to numerous debates. The debate crossed traditional lines, so that the leading conservative, Senator Barry Goldwater, was also keenly concerned. For example, Goldwater supported the controversial Colorado River Storage Project (CRSP). He wrote:

 

I feel very definitely that the [Nixon] administration is absolutely correct in cracking down on companies and corporations and municipalities that continue to pollute the nation's air and water. While I am a great believer in the free competitive enterprise system and all that it entails, I am an even stronger believer in the right of our people to live in a clean and pollution-free environment. To this end, it is my belief that when pollution is found, it should be halted at the source, even if this requires stringent government action against important segments of our national economy.

 

Water issues were central. Agriculture consumed 89% of the state's strictly limited water supply while generating only 3% of the state's income. The Groundwater Management Act of 1980, sponsored by Governor Bruce Babbitt, raised the price of water to farmers, while cities had to reach a "safe yield" so that the groundwater usage did not exceed natural replenishment. New housing developments had to prove they had enough water for the next hundred years. Desert foliage suitable for a dry region soon replaced grass.

 

Cotton acreage declined dramatically, freeing up land for suburban sprawl as well as releasing large amounts of water and ending the need for expensive specialized machinery. Cotton acreage plunged from 120,000 acres in 1997 to only 40,000 acres in 2005, even as the federal treasury gave the state's farmers over $678 million in cotton subsidies. Many farmers collect the subsidies but no longer grow cotton. About 80% of the state's cotton is exported to textile factories in China and (since the passage of NAFTA) to Mexico.

 

Super Bowl XXX was played in Tempe in 1996 and Super Bowl XLII was held in Glendale in 2008. Super Bowl XLIX was also held in Glendale in 2015.

 

Illegal immigration continued to be a prime concern within the state, and in April 2010, Arizona SB1070 was passed and signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer. The measure attracted national attention as the most thorough anti-illegal immigration measure in decades within the United States.

 

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head during a political event in Tucson on January 8, 2011. The shooting resulted in six deaths and several injuries. Giffords survived the attack and became an advocate for gun control.

 

On June 30, 2013, nineteen members of the Prescott Fire Department were killed fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire. The fatalities were members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a hotshot crew, of whom only one survived as he was working in another location.

 

Border crisis: by 2019 Arizona was one of the states most affected by the border crisis, with a high number of migrant crossings and detentions.

Includes teams from Deuel, Hot Springs, Madison, Parkston/Ethan/Hanson/Mt. Vernon. Permission granted for journalism outlets and educational purposes. Not for commercial use. Must be credited. Photo courtesy of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

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Early morning calm at Wakehurst Place. It was a very pleasant Autumnal morning to wander around the park and gardens. Thanks Niki for the tip.

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